


Kin of the Child

by LitGal



Series: The Kin Series [4]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), NCIS, The Sentinel (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitGal/pseuds/LitGal
Summary: Tony DiNozzo isn't sure where is life is going.  He thought Gibbs would call him back--find a safer job for him at NCIS, but it turns out that only Gibbs has the ability to magically turn a retirement into a vacation.  He knows Ziva is alive somewhere, but he can't find her or follow her trail once he loses her in Cairo. He has some money, but not enough, and his gut tells him that he has trouble on his tail. So he takes Tali, his little tiger cub of a girl, and he moves from place to place, trying to stay ahead of danger.  That works, until he lands in Cascade, Washington. Then it turns out that the demons of his past may be less metaphorical than he assumed, and his past is catching up with him.
Series: The Kin Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/161801
Comments: 214
Kudos: 412





	1. Chapter 1

Tony tightened his hand around his daughter’s. He might not be an NCIS agent anymore, but nothing erased decades of experience and a finely tuned gut. And right now, his gut was telling him that something was wrong. 

Worse, the something in question was subtle enough that Tony couldn't quite get a finger on it. The previous week when a pickpocket had decided that a single father distracted by a hyperactive child would be a good target, Tony had spotted the danger right away. And once he spotted it, he turned and looked the guy right in the eye. Without saying a word, he warned that man that Tony was not an easy mark. He never would be. 

He had a weapon secured in a holster on his hip and another in his boot. He had decided to expand on Gibbs's rule 9; he had a total of three knives on him. Tony's prime directive was that single parents had to protect themselves. After all, if something happened to him, Tali would be alone. 

Tony still didn’t believe that Ziva was dead. She'd always been to wiley, too aware of the need for an exit strategy and too careful about making sure that the exit strategy was ready to go at any given time. However, whether Ziva was dead or simply unwilling to come back, it made no difference in the practical sense. He and Tali had each other and no one else. And that was why Tony had grown even more paranoid. He had not reached this level of paranoia since he'd been in undercover with the Philadelphia mob.

“Abba?” A childlike voice called. Tony reached down and scooped his daughter up, careful to keep her on the left side so that his gun hand would be available.

“It's fine, my little cherry blossom,” he said in a teasing voice. 

“Not a cherry blossom,” she protested as he knew she would. 

“No?” Tony jostled her a bit on his hip, but he kept his eyes on the street. “Then what are you? Maybe you are an apple flower.”

“No.” Tali had an edge of frustration in her voice now. Tony started walking faster.

“Then maybe you are a lily.”

“No!” She twisted her mouth into a frown.

“Maybe,” Tony said slowly, trying to divide his attention between their game and the street, “Maybe you're a tiger cub.”

Tali laughed and clapped her hands excitedly. That earned her approval. She had been such a little girl when Ziva had gone missing and yet she was still her mother's daughter in all the ways that mattered. Hopefully Tony would not have as difficult a relationship with his daughter as he had had with Ziva herself.

Tony had loved her. Or at least he had been closer to being in love with her than he had had with any woman since Wendy. 

He trusted Ziva at his back, and there were very few people that he could say that about. But he did. He trusted her to be at his side against gun runners and terrorists. He trusted her to be able to defuse a bomb or to stay at his side while he tried to. He trusted her with things that he had never trusted a woman with before, but he couldn't trust her as a woman. 

He couldn't trust her to be faithful to him, as she had proved more than once. He wished that Rivkin had been the first, but he hadn't been. More than once Tony had seen her with some some acquaintance from Israel. His gut wouldn’t allow him to ignore the truth, and his pain and her betrayal became open wounds, ones she wouldn't even acknowledge.

“We have a history,” she would say about her visitor, as if that excused her lack of fidelity. 

Or no, that wasn't quite fair. They had always been very careful to avoid any hint of commitment. If anything, Ziva was more afraid of commitment than Tony himself. That had surprised Tony until he met Eli David. At that point, it was entirely too obvious why Ziva had trouble trusting men. 

He knew that he loved her father and that she always sided with her father. He suspected she'd even given her father classified Intel out of NCIS files, although both Gibbs and Jenny had been very quick to order him away from that sort of investigation or accusation. Tony knew that Gibbs had no problem playing the vigilante, and he suspected Jenny was cut from the same cloth. He could imagine both of them slipping Israel a little intel here and name there. 

Those two would use Israel to take care of the political masses that American politicians with their preference for human rights and trials refused to take care of. The thought nauseated Tony. In his heart he always had been, and always would be a cop. Acting that far outside of the law would never be a possibility for him.

He tightened his arm around the precious, squirming bundle in his arms. But his daughter would not be raised around that sort of moral ambiguity. Between Ziva and Gibbs, Tony had a belly full of ambiguity—enough for a lifetime. And Tali with her insistence that she was a tiger cub, a lion, a ninja… 

Sometimes Tony wondered how much the girl remembered of Ziva and whether Ziva had ever called Tali her little ninja the way Tony had once referred to the mother. Ziva was a ninja. She had been a little girl who wanted to be a ballerina who had been twisted and warped into a weapon by her father. And Tony was going to be the sort of father that reversed that. He would take a little tiger-cub ninja girl and teach her that it was okay to be soft, to be loving. He was going to teach her that she had a right to be anything she wanted, and if that was a ballerina, then she should twirl until the stars twirled with her. 

And if she truly wanted to be a ninja, he would grit his teeth and deal with that when the time came. But he would never push his little girl into the dark places that Ziva had gone. He would not be Eli David.

“Abba what wrong?” Tali asked.

“Nothing, baby.” Tony walked a little faster. He wished now that his hotel was in a nicer part of town, but he wasn't working. He needed to make sure his money lasted. And sadly, the Pacific Northwest was about as expensive as Paris had been.

“Eema?” Tali asked in a painfully hopeful voice.

“No baby,” Tony told her. “Not mama.” 

As always, Tali's face twisted into a resigned sadness that broke Tony's heart. He knew Ziva was alive. He had seen signs, first in Paris and then when he went to visit the farmhouse in Israel. She had left breadcrumbs on her trail, but either the breadcrumbs were not meant for him, or she had overestimated Tony's skills because he wasn't able to follow her trail. For one second, he thought he’d seen her in Cairo, her long braid sweeping her back. But he blinked, and she was gone like a mirage.

If he were kind, he would've told Tali that her mother was dead, and provided the excuse for Ziva's long absence. However, he couldn't lie to his daughter. Besides, sooner or later, Ziva would return. He believed it. Tony just wasn't sure how he is going to handle it when she did.

Tony turned onto a street teeming with tourists who had just gotten out of a local theater. He hurried through the crowd, pushing past older women who frowned at him and muttered under their breaths. When he came out the other side, his gut was screaming a little less. 

Maybe his paranoia was finally starting to take its toll. Maybe he should add a fourth knife to the collection he carried every day. It was equally possible he needed to get therapy. A little part of Tony wanted to pick up the phone and dial Gibbs’ number. At one point, he’d trusted Gibbs to fix anything.

However, in the end, Gibbs was no more faithful than Ziva had been. He had abandoned Tony after Jenny’s death, emotionally abandoned him after Rivkin's. 

He had blamed Tony for everything that had gone wrong in the squad room, and the worst part was that without Tony, Gibbs and his team were doing just as well as ever. And maybe that's why Gibbs had betrayed him in the last and most final way. Gibbs had never asked him to come back. There were jobs Tony could have done, jobs that were less dangerous than field agent. Tony had thought that after he'd been gone a month or two that Gibbs would call him back and ask him to work with the team from the office—to be an analyst or an interrogator. Hell, he could've taught at FLETC. Instead, the phone never rang.

That was the betrayal that Tony couldn't forgive, and that was why Tony had to take care of himself and his daughter. He checked the crowd as they reached their hotel, but he couldn’t see any source of danger. Maybe it was time to get the hell out of Cascade Washington.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, Chief, how are you doing?” Jim asked as he walked in the door, passing his cat as it sat in the hallway guarding their home. A lot had changed in the last year, and Jim’s spirit animal was only one part of that. At least he had help keeping Blair safe. Nothing, human or demon, was going to get past a spirit animal. They were serious mojo, having enough power from their home dimension to counter almost any magic user or demonic attacker.

The double doors to the small room under the stairs were open, and Blair looked up from his desk. “Oh man, do not ask. I am seriously about to burn every bit of my research, and then piss on the ashes.”

Jim bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing at Blair's response. The room under the stairs had long ago been converted into a full-time office, and Blair had filled every inch with paper. “It certainly looks like you have enough research here.”

“Enough?” Blair's voice went up an octave. “I have more than enough. When I decided to switch my dissertation to power structures, I had no idea that humans were going to be so damn close to demons when it came to irrational reactions to power and authority. If I didn't know better, I would say that humans are just one more variety of demon, only all of my demonic cousins would disown me if they heard me say something like that.”

Jim dropped his messenger bag on the table next to the door and leaned on the post that divided the kitchen from the main room. “I thought your demonic cousins already disown you, something to do with the fact that you helped stop the last Armageddon, the one they were backing.”

Blair shrugged without denying anything. It was actually a good thing that they had disowned Blair because if any of them showed up around Jim, he was going to seriously reconsider his position on murder. They had sided with an Apocalypse, so if Jim was the one to snap their scrawny necks, that would feel less like murder and more like the universe just catching up with them.

Blair huffed and slammed the tome he'd been looking through when Jim walked in the door. “Given the expression you have on your face right now, I would worry about my cousins and their potential lifespans, only now that Anya is running around telling everyone that you've got Va’nuss blood in you, I'm fairly sure that my cousins have decided to never come anywhere near me again.”

“That's the smartest thing your cousins have ever done.”

“Oh man, that is no joke. But at least Uncle Sal likes you,” Blair said.

Jim was not sure that like was the correct verb to use in that instance. He and Blair's Uncle Sal had reached a mutual understanding. They both liked and respected Blair and they both wanted to avoid the potential world ending conflict that would be caused if they fought, so they had decided to just ignore any less charitable feelings they had towards each other. It was a little easier to do that with Sal because he had taken in Blair and Naomi and helped him, even before Blair had joined Angel and Spike and their crazy crew down in LA. As far as Jim was concerned, anyone who helped Blair was on Santa's good list.

“So, there's a new demon in town.”

Blair's gaze sharpened. “Oh?”

“The adult was suspicious, so I couldn't get close, but it was a male with a very young child.” Jim grimaced. He hated getting caught when he was tailing someone, and he was ninety percent sure the man had spotted him. He’d looked right at Jim, his gaze sharp and suspicious, and his hand hovering near the hidden holder that probably held a gun. Or maybe spell casting materials. Jim’s understanding of what was a weapon had changed since Blair had introduced him to the realities of demon society.

Blair frowned. “Just the two of them? No clan?”

Jim shook his head. “Not that I could tell, but then I couldn't get very close. In fact, I couldn't tell if the male was the demon or if it was the child or both. I just know that something gave me that tingly, cranky feeling that means I don't like having demons in my territory.”

Blair dropped the book onto the desk, nearly starting a paper avalanche as he pushed back his chair. “Oh man, let me tell you, demons don't like being in your territory. No one can clean out demonic activity like you can.”

“That's because demons are smarter than the average criminal in Cascade.”

“No joke.” Blair came over and wrapped an arm around Jim’s waist, leaning into him. Jim hugged him back. For a second, Jim rested his cheek against Blair’s head and soaked up the heat of his partner. He had lost so many illusions about the world—about himself—but the truth had brought him this. Jim would not trade their bond for anything in the universe. After a second, Blair asked, “Do you think there's a chance that this is a human who is kidnapped a young demon? There are a lot of demon species that have properties that magic users might want to acquire.”

“Please tell me you're not talking about acquiring by dismemberment,” Jim begged. Blair stepped back, breaking their connection before he shrugged.

Jim sighed. “Great. Demons suck.”

Blair gestured to the massive pile of research that covered the office. “Oh yeah? Well, apparently humans suck in exactly the same way. I think we can safely say that all sentient creatures are power-hungry sons-of-bitches and that this planet and all planets in all dimensions would probably be better off without sentient life.”

“That's dark, Sandburg.”

He huffed. “What can I tell you? I am feeling the darkness right now. By the time I turn this dissertation in, the university is going to have me committed for being looney tunes.” He emphasized his words by twirling his forefingers in circles near his temples. “Looney tunes.”

“That's okay, chief. I'll break you out of the asylum.”

Blair shook his head and radiated fond exasperation. “Whatever. So, what are the odds that this was a kidnapping? There's no way some demon clan would put out an Amber alert if a human hunter managed to grab one of their offspring.”

Jim shook his head. “No. The girl was comfortable with the man, and she called him Abba.”

“Whoa.” Blair whistled. “Jewish demon?”

“I was going to say a Hebrew speaking potential demon, but something like that.” Jim stripped off his jacket. “Are there such things as Jewish demons?”

Blair opened his mouth, and Jim held his hand up, palm out. “Please. It is been a very long day of budget reviews and effectiveness surveys. Give me the short version.”

Blair gave him a devilish grin, one that made Jim think that he was about to get a full on history lesson of some demonic dimension that Jim didn't want to know about. However, the smile faded and Blair huffed again. “There are a few. You have more demons associated with Christianity, weirdly.”

“Why is that weird?”

For a second, Blair gave him a sharp look. “I don't know. Why is it weird that Jesus, the Jew, somehow triggered demons who were Jewish to become Christian? Yeah, that's not weird, not at all.” Blair rolled his eyes. “Man, in demonic terms Christianity was like two generations ago. However, lots of demon clans found those early Christians way tastier than the Jews.”

“They ate them?” Horror rose in Jim's throat, making the words hard to get out.

Blair gave him an odd look. “They're not Jewish or Christian in terms of their beliefs about saving their immortal souls. If you say a demon is Christian or Jewish or Muslim, generally what you're saying is that that demonic clan likes to hide within that community. And so they take on those traits. They speak that language or dress a certain way. If you want to talk about demons that think their soul can go to the higher plane of existence and find heaven, we’re to be right back to those early lectures about eudaemon and how the world started.”

“No thank you,” Jim said. He may accept that he had a tiny drop of demon blood, and that that drop was from a demon terrifying enough that it had a reputation for wiping out entire dimensions. However, he didn’t want to have Blair’s encyclopedic knowledge of the arcane. In fact, he was very happy that his own demonic clan lived in Los Angeles and he was still a police detective in Cascade, Washington. At least he was for now. The brass was pushing hard for him to take over now that Simon had been promoted. Personally, Jim was fairly sure that if he didn't get to go out on the streets and arrest criminals that he was going to have a whole lot of trouble with his anger issues. As if summoned by that thought, Jim's spirit animal appeared.

Blair stepped around the cat, giving it a quick pat on the head as he headed for the kitchen.

The panther raised his lip in a snarl, but Blair ignored the implied threat, like he usually did. Besides, Jim's spirit animal would never attack Blair. At least, it wouldn't now that he and Blair had started communicating more openly and they understood each other.

“So, are you feeling a need to track down this demon?” Blair asked.

“He’s staying in a hotel a couple of blocks from the oceanfront. If bodies start dropping, I'm going to know where to look.”

Blair glanced over his shoulder “Man, way to show your prejudices, totally uncool.”

“Darwin, the last time we had a family of demons visit, they ate a dozen homeless people and left the bones in the sewer.”

“Yeah, and you then slaughtered them all horribly. Letting the one getaway after you'd hacked off three of his four limbs, only brutal. Totally.” Blair came out of the fridge with two beers. He tossed one at Jim. “After that story got around, Cascade became the most demon free zone in the entire US. I'm pretty sure that people were dismissing Anya's stories of you being Va’nuss as demonic fairytales until that little incident. But trust me, if this guy is connected with demonic clans at all, he will steer clear of your territory.”

Jim frowned as he considered what Blair wasn’t saying. “You're implying that this is someone who's trying to find the territory safe from demons.”

Blair shrugged. “Maybe.” He put his beer on the counter and headed back to the fridge. “Maybe this is a demon who is trying to get away with his child. Maybe this is a human who had an affair with the demon and is trying to get the child away from the demon clan.” Jim winced. For Blair, that had to strike a little too close to home. Blair brought out the leftover roast. “Who knows? But if there is a demon in town, that does seem like the kind of thing someone should know about.”

“If this demon seems to pose any kind of threat, I'll call Angel,” Jim promised.

“Oh man, that's what you said with the last clan, and you didn't call him until after you had disemboweled, beheaded and ritually slaughtered most of the clan. He was unamused.”

“He understood,” Jim argued. If he’d thought the Lubber demons were a threat, he would have called before he’d gone into the sewers. However, the second he read Blair’s information, he knew he could take the clan. He’d told Angel as much.

“Angelus understood,” Blair corrected him. “Oh man, I suspect Angelus was feeling serious envy at how much slaughter you got to do. However Angel, the broody one with the soul… he was not amused.”

“Since they’re sharing the same body, it's good enough that one of them backed my decision to keep our clan out of it. This is my territory and that was my fight.”

Blair snorted. “You are part of Angel and Spike’s clan. I'm pretty sure that makes this Angel’s territory Spike’s fight. You know Spike was put out that he didn’t get to crack any heads. And normally, I am anti-Spike violence, but Lubbers really are anti-human assholes. Spike had a right to a piece of that action.”

Jim suspected that the next time he visited the clan, Spike was going to make exactly that point in person. However, Jim stood by his decision. “I wanted to make sure there were some demons alive to go back to the main clan and tell them to stay out of Cascade.”

Blair gave him an incredulous look and held up a single finger. “One demon. You left one demon mostly alive.” He grimaced. “Maybe partially alive. He was kind of banged up there. Do you really think Spike would've done worse than that?”

Jim crossed his arms. “Yes.”

Blair had been peeling the plastic wrap away from the meat, but now he paused. “Okay, I know you haven't spent a lot of time with Spike, and when you did spend time with him, there was that whole world-ending Jenny Calendar thing going on, but Spike is not a mindless killer.”

“I never said he was, Sport. But Spike and I would've been competing to kill more fighters, and between our aggression and our competitive natures, there would not have been any demons left alive.”

“Disturbing.” Blair went back to unwrapping their dinner.

“Yeah, but true,” Jim said. “And we are not inviting Spike or Angel up until we figure out why there is a demon hanging out in Cascade.”

“Oh man, it's your funeral.”

“No, it’s ours,” Jim said sweetly. “After all, we’re in this together.”

“You’re a real bastard, Jim Ellison,” Blair said with mock horror. “And if Spike gets pissy, I’m hiding behind Xander and aiming Spike straight at you. You can take your lumps like a good little va’nuss.”

Jim bent into a crouch. “You’ll pay for that threat, Sandburg.”

Blair held up the serving spoon he had just picked up. “Don’t you dare, Ellison. I am starving, and I want to get dinner going.”

The nice thing about how much Cascade had grown was that a person could get any kind of delivery at any time of day. Jim wasn’t too worried about either of them starving. He stalked around the end of the kitchen counter, his hands held low.

Blair dropped the spoon and it clattered to the floor as Blair leaped up and over the kitchen counter. In a flash, he was running, and Jim darted to cut him off from the front door. Reversing direction, Blair led the chase up the stairs into their bedroom, and Jim was more than happy to follow. The issue of strange demons could wait until after they’d had their fun.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony watched the female officer as she tried to keep Tali happy. The woman had a slightly horrified expression, and Tony hoped Tali hadn’t said anything that would warrant getting Child Protective Services involved. Sometimes she had a mercenary bent that didn’t match her sweet face or tender age.

Yep, Tony’s little girl was unique.

“When did you spot the suspect?” the officer asked for the fourth time. 

Tony stomped down on his frustration because he understood the necessity of confirming witness statements. “When he got out of his vehicle.” Tony stopped before giving his entire statement again. He just wished a detective would show up and do this part of the interview because repeating himself to a patrol officer was both pointless and detrimental to best investigative practice. When witnesses repeated information, they tended to add or distort details. The early statements were the most accurate. The officer looked over toward the end of the alley where the patrol officer was trying—and failing—to entertain Tali. A new man was there.

Tony’s read him as a detective, and one that worked undercover. He had the wariness of an officer—a certain on-alert persona that suggested he understood danger, but none of his obvious body language screamed cop. He patted one officer on the arm, and then bounced a bit, like a hyperactive addict who had gotten a little something extra in their daily hit. He had long, curly hair that definitely would make him stand out in police culture, which tended to be more military, and an easy smile that was designed to put people at ease.

With the exception of the hair, he reminded Tony of himself.

The patrol officer physically stepped away from Tony, ceding the field to the new arrival, but the detective didn’t seem quick to assert his control over the scene. He stopped to chat with the woman watching Tali. Tali said something, and the patrol officer’s face twisted with some dark emotion, but the new guy laughed and fluffed Tali’s hair.

Shockingly, Tali endured the gesture without the flurry of offended elbow jabs she gave most strangers who touched her. Hell, when Tony had first taken custody, she had poked him more than once, and she had damn sharp elbows. But she just gave this new man a weary look, as if too tired to deal with the guy’s overly familiar attitude.

Tony had gotten that look more than once, himself.

Watching, he was taken with how comfortable this guy was in his own skin. Comfortable, but utter out of place surrounded by cops. Tony wondered if he had only recently given up undercover work because he should have picked up a few mannerisms from his co-workers, but other than the alert gaze and the bulge under his colorful jacket, nothing even hinted at him being a cop.

“Hey!” the stranger said when he got close. “Man, that is some bad damn luck, or good luck if you’re the Cascade PD. Totally good luck. Thanks for spotting that asshole before he robbed the bank, but I am so sorry you got shot at.” He nodded, his curls bopping around his head.

“Um... thanks?” That is not where Tony expected the detective to start the interrogation.

“If we have one more bank robbery this year, the commissioner has threatened to demote all of us and replace us with police dogs.” That was followed by an exaggerated shudder. “I’m Blair Sandburg. So, can you just start from the beginning, and tell me what happened?” His title was conspicuous in its absence, but Tony set that aside for the moment.

“I was walking to the park with my daughter, and I spotted the male sitting in his car. We stopped to get an ice cream, so I noted that he was there for an extended amount of time and he twice got out of his car and then back into it. Both times, his decision to get back into the car came right after a people went into the bank—the first time a couple and the second time a group of three older women. When he got out of his car again, I spotted the bulge under his jacket. I asked the ice cream vendor to watch my daughter and call the police to tell them a bank robbery was about to happen.”

Blair Sandburg nodded along as if all this was reasonable. The patrol officers hadn’t. They’d made it clear that Tony should have been grabbing his daughter and running for the hills, but that’s not how Tony was built. He didn’t walk away from trouble.

He got is ass kicked. Often. But he didn’t walk away.

“And then?” Sandburg prompted him.

“I called out to the suspect.” Tony hesitated before admitting, “I identified myself as NCIS and told him to freeze.”

“Whoa. Like Navy cop NCIS?” Sandburg’s eyes got large. “I totally smell jurisdiction pissing match coming.”

“No, you don’t,” Tony said with a sigh. “I was NCIS for fifteen years, but I retired from the agency last year. I said that out of habit.”

“Oh.” Sandburg seemed a little bewildered by that.

“I am aware that impersonating a federal agent is...” Tony swallowed the word criminal. “Unwise, but after fifteen years, pulling my weapon triggers that response.”

“Totally. Oh man, I get it.” Sandburg was back to nodding enthusiastically enough to make his hair bob merrily. “And we owe you, so trust me, no one is going to get picky. Could we bother you to come down to the station to do a taped interview and fill out civilian arrest paperwork?”

“I didn’t technically arrest him,” Tony said dryly. The suspect had firmly outrun him. Even now, Tony could feel the constriction in his lungs—the burning he always endured when he tried to get a plagued-damaged body to react the way he wanted it to.

“You scared him into running face first into a patrol officer, so I think this counts as your collar,” Sandburg said. “After all, Collins would have helped the guy up, dusted him off and sent him on his way if you hadn’t been yelling for Collins to arrest him.”

“I’m not impressed by Collins.” Tony didn’t say that he would rate his own performance slightly lower than Collins, and the only reason the thief got caught was because he was a paragon of incompetence. At least Collins could catch and hold onto an armed felon.

Sandburg leaned close. “None of us are. My partner is ready to shove him head first in a mail box, and not one of the big ones,” he said in a mock whisper. “So, will you come down and help out with the mountain of paperwork?”

Tony felt a new kind of restriction in his chest—this one having to do with the fear of the unknown. Lots of cops asked someone to come in before pressing charges for something like impersonating a federal agent. Tony wondered if Gibbs would come to his rescue for something that stupid. Probably not. He looked toward the end of the alley. “My daughter—“

“Oh, yeah.” Sandburg turned that way, putting his back to Tony. Either he didn’t consider Tony a threat or he had a hell of a lot of confidence in his own ability to defend himself. Sure, the patrol officers had taken most of Tony’s weapons, including both his guns, but Tony wasn’t a fluffy bunny, not even unarmed. 

Sandburg turned back. “We should rescue Dahlia from her. She is a handful, and as a former child handful myself, I know one when I see one. What’s her name?”

“Tali,” Tony said.

“Tali. Hebrew for ‘dew.’ Awesome name.”

That shocked Tony temporarily speechless, but then with a name like Sandburg, the guy could be Jewish himself. Tony wasn’t sure why that bothered him, but it did. Then again, everything bothered him today.

“So?” Sandburg asked, a childlike hopefulness in his voice. Tony nodded. He didn’t actually have a choice, not unless he wanted an adversarial relationship with the CPD. Worse, the perp would probably walk unless the DA had a statement from Tony. He felt bad enough that his mis-identification of his own status would create an opportuny for a good defense attorney—or even a mediocre one. 

“Awesome. Like I said, we owe you. Totally. After we get your statement, I’ll take you out for a congratulatory steak dinner, or if you like your arteries, there’s a seafood place with all fresh produce and seafood. It’s to die for.” Sandburg chatted away. Tony had the feeling that most people relaxed in the face of Sandburg chatter, but Tony’s guts were getting more tangled with every passing second.

He walked faster, passing Sandburg in his hurry to get to Tali. Before Tony got there, Tali’s body went stiff, her fists grabbing the patrol woman hard enough that she started. Two seconds later, Tony was there, grabbing Tali out of the woman’s hands and pressing her against his own chest.

“Abba,” Tali said, either in protest of how tightly Tony was holding or out of her own fear—Tony wasn’t sure which.

“We caught the bad guy,” Tony said. Knowing his daughter, the idea of winning a fight would soothe her better than any lullaby. 

“Abba is fast,” Tali said happily.

Tony grunted. He wasn’t, but he liked knowing his daughter idolized him enough to overlook his shortcomings. A tall man with a receding hairline and impressive scowl strode through the crowd of officers—far too many for one scene. Tony understood that officers tended to congregate because there was safety in numbers, but this was ridiculous. But the newcomer stood out from all the others. He didn’t look like Gibbs in any way, but something still set off Tony’s Gibbs-alert, which just pissed him off. If no one was going to be around to get as protective as Gibbs, Tony sure as hell shouldn’t have to deal with the attitude, and the newcomer had attitude.

Then Sandburg was there, stepping in front of Tony. “Jim, this is Tony DiNozzo, retired federal agent. Tony, this is Detective Jim Ellison, lead detective and deputy captain of our Major Crime unit. Now Jim, Tony helped us out, so none of your standard hating all feds just because they’re feds routine.”

Detective Ellison blinked, obviously caught off guard, and then Sandburg was ushering Tony past him, hurrying him toward a waiting sedan. Tony expected Ellison to call after them and order them back. After all, no captain, not even a deputy one, liked to get called out by a subordinate, but Sandburg got them to the car without any protest.

“He’s a good man—grumpy as a bear with a sore paw, but he is not unique in that. The department is full of grumpy people, and when I try and get them to meditate or do something to address their serious emotional imbalance, it’s like trying to pull wisdom teeth without the Novocaine. You’ve worked law enforcement. You have to have noticed this, well unless you are one of the victims of emotional constipation. Man, we totally should have a child seat for Tali, but we’re going to pretend she is four feet tall. You’ll be fine, won’t you Tali?” Sandburg asked as he opened the back door.

“I’m a tiger cub,” Tali announced proudly.

“I am not doubting that. Tigers are impressive, but they’re loners. You don’t want to be alone, so why don’t you be a lion cub or a wolf pup? I like wolves. They’re smart. They never take on a predator unless they have their pack with them, and they cover each other. That means they can take out prey much larger than themselves.”

“So can tigers,” Tali protested as Tony buckled her into the back seat. The fact is that Tony had driven with her out of a child seat entirely too often, but given that she survived an explosion and house fire, a car accident seemed like such a mundane threat. Now that Sandburg had pointed it out, Tony felt like a shitty father for taking Tali on so many trains and cabs without a car seat.

“But tigers get hurt and sometimes die because they don’t have a pack,” Sandburg argued. “That makes them timid hunters. They hide in shadow, and there is nothing wrong with shadows. Nope, not even a little. But wolves and lions have the advantage.”

Tony recognized Tali’s expression. She was seriously reconsidering her position on being a tiger cub. “Let’s go,” Tony said as he walked to the passenger side front door. He wanted to get this over with and deal with the consequences later. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to contend with anything more serious than having to buy new pajamas with Tali’s new favorite animal.

Sandburg got in and started the car. Tony waited until he had pulled into the traffic before he asked, “So, Mr. Sandburg, I don’t think I caught your official title.”

That caused a flicker of response, although Tony couldn’t read Sandburg as easily as he could most people. 

“Sorry about that,” Sandburg said. “It’s actually Agent Sandburg. I am a special liaison between the Cascade police and CID.” He smiled, and now Tony felt the deception in every cell of his body.

CID. The Army equivalent of NCIS, but one that favored active duty military personnel. Oh hell no. Tony had no idea what was going on, but if this guy was military, Tony would eat his underwear. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Washington, and Tony had landed right in the middle of it.

That’s the old DiNozzo luck showing up again. Tony glanced toward the back. Or maybe it was the David luck. Either way, Tony had a sinking feeling that he was in trouble, and he didn’t have backup on the way. He knew that feeling all too well.


	4. Chapter 4

“Mr. DiNozzo, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you doing this,” Agent Sandburg said as Tony signed his written statement. 

Tony nodded absent-mindedly. “I understand the difficulties of making convictions stick. I am hoping you can get this guy off the street.” Tony wasn't actually all that hopeful. He had used one of the many lulls in the action to look up conviction rates in Cascade Washington, and this group had some serious issues. From what Tony could tell from the news, the issue sounded less like incompetent lawyers and more like police officers who didn't actually know how to find their ass with both hands and a flashlight.

Tony had spent a decade trying to mitigate the inadmissible habits of three teammates, so he understood that sometimes detectives took actions that they shouldn't. He understood that more than most. Considering that he had been dealing with Gibbs and his selective application of evidence and Ziva and her damn lock picks and McGee…. Oh God, McGee. 

Tony felt so much guilt over the fact that they took a rule-following young agent who eventually would have gotten into the field on his own and had turned him into someone who regularly hacked some of the most secure computers in the country. Sooner or later, that was going to come back to bite Tim in the ass. 

The problem was bending the law and breaking the law were the thing. But others didn’t see it that way. When Gibbs illegally shared the name of a suspect with dangerous criminals in order to get that suspect killed, in Gibbs’ mind that wasn't conspiracy to commit murder. Because no one could possible catch him, that was simply “bending” the law.

Tony jerked his thoughts back to the present. He hated the fact that even though he'd walked away from NCIS, he couldn't reclaim his own thoughts. For the millionth time, Tony wondered if he should be seeking therapy. He looked over, and agent Sandburg was giving him a concerned look.

“Just tired,” Tony said as an excuse.

Sandburg nodded, but he didn't bother looking convinced. “That girl of yours is a cutie.”

Tony smiled. “That she is.” Tali was the sole light in Tony's life right now. The rest of the world might be willing to either walk away from Tony DiNozzo or let Tony walk away from them without a fight, but not his little tiger girl. Or, apparently, his little wolf girl. Agent Sandburg had some magical powers to connect with Tali that fast.

“How long have you two been traveling together?” Agent Sandburg asked.

It made Tony deeply uncomfortable that Sandburg would ask about Tali, especially since Tony was still trying to figure out where Agent Sandburg fit in the grand scheme. Quite frankly, nothing made sense. Tony could certainly understand the FBI putting a liaison in Cascade. After all, if they wanted any of their cases to stick, they needed one. The CPD certainly couldn’t follow through with convictions. However, CID had no business being in this area. There were no significant Army bases, so there weren't a significant number of Army grunts needing to be arrested, and CID, unlike NCIS, had no authority over civilians because they were not a civilian organization. In fact, Tony was fairly sure civilian CID agents had to have a military partner, but Tony wasn't entirely sure on that. He didn't routinely keep up with the regulations of agencies he had nothing to do with.

He gave Sandburg the patented DiNozzo self-deprecating smile number two. “Oh, a while.”

Agent Sandburg nodded. “I hear you.”

Tony frowned. That was an odd statement. Tony wasn't sure if that was supposed to build rapport or just confuse him. 

“Hey man, do you need to call someone? Your wife? Tali’s mom? It may be a little while before the DA can review the statement and make sure that we have all of our ducks in a row.” Sandburg shrugged. “You know how it is.”

Tony didn't know how that was. At NCIS, they took the statement and then sent it over to JAG. JAG certainly didn't hang out in their bullpen, waiting to review witness statements before investigators let anyone go home. That definitely spoke of a serious lack of trust between detectives and prosecutors. Tony felt like humming the theme song to Law and Order to remind these guys of the part where police and district attorneys worked together to bring bad guys to justice.

“Tali and I are on our own,” Tony said. “Where is she?” Tony definitely did not like having his girl out of his sight.

“She's with detective Ellison,” Blair said.

“The deputy captain?” Now Tony was really confused. Deputy captains did not babysit, and worse, Tali had not liked him. Tony had learned to pay attention to her instincts and when she didn't like someone, she had a reason. “Maybe you could go and get her?” Tony suggested.

“I'm sure she's fine.” Sandburg gave him a smile, one that appeared genuine, but this was Tony’s daughter. He was not about to get put off. 

“I really think I need to see Tali,” he said firmly.

“No problem.” Agent Sandburg nodded and that mop of curls bounced around his head. How the hell did this guy work with Army? Something was not right in the state of Washington. Moving like a man who had had too much caffeine and too little sleep, Blair bounced up, did an uncoordinated little hop and then headed for the door.

Weird.

Then again, weird appeared to be the default for Agent Sandburg. Tony stood and walked the room. It was a small interrogation room with the standard one-way mirror, which Tony kept his back to. In a lot of stations, the soundproofing material took a real beating. Suspects would pick at it until great scabs would come off the wall leaving the room scarred. But this place was well maintained. So their maintenance staff was competent, but they couldn’t take a case all the way through to conviction. The whole station was an exercise in contradictions, and Tony didn’t like anything that didn't make sense. He was just starting to get the uncomfortable feeling that he'd been abandoned in a locked room when Agent Sandburg came back in, leading Tali by the hand. 

“Daddy!” Tali sang out her joy. The fear that had been steadily growing since Tony had stepped into the room evaporated and he scooped his little girl up. “How is my tiger girl?” Tony hugged her close. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “I'm wolf girl now.”

Tony leaned back so he could look at her. “How is my little wolf girl?” 

She smiled. “The big one says we can stay in town.”

Sandburg appeared surprised. “Did he?” 

“What big one?” Tony asked with a sinking feeling. If a large man took an interest in keeping his daughter around, Tony had an even greater interest in making sure the asshole didn't get anywhere near her.

“That would be Detective Ellison,” Agent Sandburg said. “He was babysitting Tali and they had a good long talk.”

“He can be scary,” Tali said seriously.

“Scary how? Tony asked. He tried to keep all of his fears away from Tali, but he could imagine any number of things that might've happened, and just because detective Ellison was a police officer did not mean Tony gave him a pass on being capable of committing terrible crimes.

“Scary like daddy is,” Tali said. “He scares bad guys. He's like a tiger!” Tony's eyebrows went up. From Tali that was the highest praise a person could get. Tony wasn't sure she'd even applied it to him. The only person she consistently called a tiger was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. After she had seen Jumanji, she had demanded more, and Tony sucked at saying no to his daughter. He was pretty sure that was going to come back to bite him in the ass when she was a teenager. “Detective Ellison said we could stay in town?” Tony had a sinking feeling for a whole different reason. He was fairly sure that translated into a deputy captain suggesting that a witness who had potentially committed a federal crime not leave town.

Tali nodded happily.

“We’ll see.” Tony tried to keep his voice even, but he was mentally calculating best strategies. If he left, they could still issue a warrant. But if he stayed, he made it easier for an overly ambitious captain to push for charges. Sometimes just being in the sight line of someone was enough to set them off. Boy did Tony know that.

Agent Sandburg smiled at Tali. “That's great. Maybe if you stick around, you can see the aquarium. We have sharks on exhibit.” His voice rose with enthusiasm.

Tali’s eyes lit up. Agent Sandburg sure as hell had her number. “Sharks?” She almost squealed.

Agent Sandburg nodded. “Yep. Sharks, and all sorts of other critters. I bet your dad would take you.” Agent Sandburg looked at Tony as if Tony had a choice. After that suggestion, Tali wouldn't let him sleep until she got to see real life sharks. 

“Of course, I will.” Tony said, Agent Sandburg smiled at him. However, Tony's sense of impending doom just got worse.

“Maybe I could be a shark girl,” Tali said.

“But sharks are alone, just like tigers,” Agent Sandburg explained as if this were the most normal conversation in the world. “That’s why wolves are better. Stronger.”

“Do they have wolves at the zoo here?” Tali asked. Before Tony could say anything, Sandburg took a step closer and his expression grew somber. 

“Don't visit wolves at the zoo, sweetie. Being locked up makes a wolf different. It makes them more aggressive, less cooperative. They get fed; they don't have a chance to hunt. That makes everything worse.”

Tali’s lip had the quiver that meant she might start crying soon and Tony gave Agent Sandburg a dirty look. The man obviously had no children and did not understand the horror of a crying child. But just when Tony expected Tali to have a complete meltdown, she settled back into his arms. “I don't like zoos,” she announced solemnly. 

Tony held her tighter. “Then we won’t go to one. We’ll visit the sharks.” Tony wasn’t sure an aquarium was better, but if it kept Tali from crying, he would ignore logic.

“Come on,” Blair said, “Let's get you out of here and into someplace more comfortable like our mold-infested, overcrowded break room. I'm sure you'll feel right at home since pretty much every break room I've ever seen is as equally overused and under cleaned.” Sandburg's grin invited comradery, but Tony wasn’t sure he was willing to extend his trust. There were too many questions swirling around Agent Sandburg.

“Sure.” Tony headed for the open door to the interview room. The hallway was as clean and kept up as the interrogation room, so Tony suspected their break room would be the same, but for the sake of making peace, he would play along. They were halfway down the hall when Detective Ellison appeared at the far end walking beside a man with a suit. 

The suited man gave a smile that immediately made Tony think sharks and lawyers. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Detective Ellison snapped, “DiNozzo, don't say a word. This asshole plans to charge you for impersonating a federal agent because he thinks it will make his case against the bank robber stronger—that it will show that we weren't in collusion with you.” Ellison's glare in lawyer’s direction made it clear just how stupid he considered that strategy. “I already have a lawyer coming, and you will not give this asshole anything.”

“Captain Ellison!” the lawyer snapped in a disapproving tone.

Ellison turned to fully face the lawyer. “Detective Ellison,” he corrected the man. “And I am fighting a promotion to captain because of assholes like you who play fast and loose with the rules in order to get what you want. The law is not a game, and you don't get to cheat when mommy isn’t watching to make sure you play fair.”

The lawyer lost most of his color, but before he could respond, Detective Ellison turned back and called over his shoulder. “Blair, stay with DiNozzo and make sure this asshole doesn't do anything until the lawyer gets here.” Ellison strode away, leaving the lawyer with an open mouth. 

Tali started to cry, and Tony clutched his daughter as his worst fears came crashing down around his head. He was going to be arrested. Again. And worse, this time the charge was actually true. He was so screwed.


	5. Chapter 5

“How dare he!” The lawyer practically sputtered the words. If Tony hadn’t been gripped with fear, he would have been amused.

“Man, you have no idea what he will dare. That was you getting off lucky,” Agent Sandburg said. The bastard had the audacity to grin while saying it. Either he had an abundance of balls or a lack of brains. “And considering the bullshit you’re trying to pull, seriously, fucking lucky.” Sandburg looked over toward Tony. “I should not have said that word in front of you, honey. That’s not a good word to say. We only say it when we want to eviscerate someone, but the law says you can’t.” He said that in such a normal tone that it took a half second for Tony to realize that Sandburg was talking to Tali. Most people baby-talked at her. And they avoided the topic of evisceration.

Sandburg shifted his focus to Tony. “Come on, I’ll show you the break room.”

The lawyer took a quick step forward. “Agent Sandburg, I insist you arrest the suspect and put him in a holding cell.”

Tony stiffened, and Tali’s quivering lip returned. Up to this point, Tony had thought of Sandburg as the perpetual good-guy, the soft touch relegated to dealing with witnesses and special victims. But now Sandburg drew himself up and his mouth turned hard.

“You do not have the right to order me to do jack shit, buddy. If you want, I can give you Colonel Finn’s number since he’s my superior at CID, and he will then tell you that you can’t order me to do jack shit. And if you push it farther, I will call the governor and complain about you trying to order me to do jack shit. I fucking hate people who abuse political connections, but do not think that will keep me from using them when I see someone getting railroaded.” Sandburg’s cold tone made a shiver go up Tony’s spine. Sandburg knew how to play bad cop, that was for damn sure.

“I’ll get someone else to arrest him.”

“You can try,” Sandburg said in a strangely jovial tone as he turned his back on the lawyer, “but that was a minor tremor in the potential explosion of Mount St. Ellison. I think you’re going to find that most officers in this building have just found urgent business anywhere away from you.” Sandburg caught Tony by the elbow and hurried him down the hallway away from the interrogation rooms.

Tali blinked, her head swiveling as she looked from Sandburg to the lawyer. Tony understood her confusion, but since Sandburg seemed to vote in favor of keeping Tony out of a jail cell, he allowed Sandburg to usher him down the hall.

Like Sandburg predicted, the placed had emptied out. Two detectives sat typing reports in one room they passed and a couple of uniformed officers took one look at them and fled. Other than that, Cascade Police Department appeared virtually abandoned. The security issues around that made Tony wonder if all these cops were taking advantage of Washington’s recreational marijuana law.

“Can I get Tali a water or an s-o-d-a?” Sandburg asked in an oddly cheerful voice.

“I don't want to get you in trouble,” Tony said. Sooner or later, the lawyer would find someone else, and Tony wanted to minimize the chance of any violence. “If Detective Ellison is telling the truth about a lawyer coming, maybe Tali and I can wait somewhere quiet and out of the way until he shows.” Tony would far rather hang out in one of the interrogation rooms than he would get relegated to a cell, especially since that would put Tali into emergency foster care. Tony had very few illusions about what happened to children in the system.

“Don't worry about it,” Sandburg said as he plunked coins into a vending machine. He pulled out a flavored vitamin water and handed it to Tali. “Anderson is an asshole, and Jim has been looking for an excuse to trim his wings.”

“Refusing out right to arrest someone is going to get you in hot water,” Tony said. He stopped. Trying to convince someone to arrest him seemed like a dumb move. What the hell was he thinking?

Sandburg just shrugged. “No worries. I'm CID, so technically I don't have the authority to arrest a civilian. So Anderson is pretty much showing off his ignorance. Hell, if the Commissioner thought I tried arresting a civilian, he'd be on the phone with Colonel Finn to complain. He gets enough heartburn just thinking about the fact that he has a CID agent working in his oh-so civilian agency.” Sandburg snorted. “Most of the time police officers are pro-military, but our new commissioner really has a thing against the Army. Either that, or he has a thing against me. That's entirely possible because I have pointed out one or two of his flaws in vivid detail.” Sandburg leaned close as if sharing a dark secret. “It's amazing how many people don't like that.”

Insane. The whole department was stark raving mad, and after working at NCIS, Tony did know what crazy looked like. 

“How did a CID agent come to liaison with Cascade police,” Tony asked since the conversation seemed to give him an opening. 

Blair shrugged, “Oh, you know how it is.”

Tony had a few suspicions about how it was. After all, he'd worked with a rather improbable liaison officer, and he was still fairly sure that daddy David and the good Director Shepard were in some sort of collusion. For all of her abilities, and Ziva was an exceptionally impressive individual, she was not particularly talented with investigations. So there was some other reason for putting her on that team.

Tony tried to find a politically safe way of asking if Agent Sandburg was up to his neck in politics when Sandburg clapped his hands together. “So, we need a safe place for you guys to stay for a few days.”

“I have a hotel,” Tony said.

“Yeah, but you gave the patrol officer the name of that hotel,” Sandburg said, which was Tony’s first clue that Sandburg intended to hide them. This was exceeding even NCIS levels of insane.

He shook his head. “I would rather deal with trouble head on.”

Sandburg rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?” He sounded amused. “I’m just suggesting that you stay out of sight for a while. If Jim calls the lawyer I think he’s going to, it’s going to take a couple of days for him to get here. As soon as he shows up, you can come and be as confrontational as you like.”

“I don’t like confrontation at all.”

“Oh man, tell that to someone who doesn’t know that you took on a bank robber, ordered around a patrol officer, and called me out for not following my superior’s orders. You’re nicer than most of the people around here when it comes to confrontation, but you are not exactly avoiding it.”

Tony stared at Sandburg in horror.

After a second, Sandburg shrugged. “Yeah, yeah. It’s rude to rearrange mental furniture, I get it. Trust me everyone down here is given me that particular speech.” Sandburg shook his head as if amused by the whole human race, “but you are not having a clear vision of yourself right now. So, I have a friend you can stay with. He’s got a nice big place with lots of spare room, and a paranoia issue so extreme that no one is going to bother you there. Even if the police suspect you’re there, they’re going to know that they can’t get a warrant and Jack won’t let them in his door. It’s the perfect firewall for you and Tali.” Sandburg winked at Tali and then circled around Tony to get to the exit.

Tony found himself following before he could make up his mind about whether to go along with Sandburg’s plan. “I don’t know.”

“Totally fine,” Sandburg said. “I mean, you wouldn’t know because you just landed in the middle of all this.” Sandburg spread his hands out to take in the large lobby they’d just reach with its official seal on the floor. The damn building still looked like a ghost town with a few officers doing paperwork and others who fled at the sight of Sandburg. This guy was definitely not the good-cop type, at least not with people who knew him. “But I know, and trust me, you are going to be fine and Anderson is going to seriously regret his life choices.”

“I…” Tony closed his mouth. He had no words, which was unusual for him. He watched an older black detective chatting with a woman. His lean was too forced and his body language stiff. He definitely considered the woman a suspect, but she was chatting away like she didn’t have a care in the world. It was an odd vignette. 

“So, what’s your family like?” Sandburg asked as he led them through a door marked “Staff Only.” Tali was oddly relaxed in Tony’s arms.

“Typically dysfunctional,” Tony said. 

“I hear that.” Sandburg huffed. “Man, my father was a real asshole. He makes Anderson look like a fluffy puppy, and after he knocked my mom up, he walked out. Totally ghosted her. So there she was with unsupportive parents of her own and a baby. Some people, ya know?”

The confession made Tony deeply uncomfortable. He understood the psychology of it. If a person revealed something personal, the listener felt obligated to reciprocate. But Tony did not know Sandburg well enough to get into his issues with Senior.

“Luckily some of his family was a little more understanding of the whole mixed heritage.”

“Mixed heritage?” The phrase came out before Tony could edit himself. Sure, he knew there were hate groups that might object to an Aryan having a child with a Jew—at least that’s the mixing Tony assumed was going on based on Sandburg’s name—but that was an odd phrase.

Sandburg didn’t answer. They reached a big, old white truck with a double cab. It wasn’t the sort of vehicle Tony expected Sandburg to drive, but then he was starting to think he couldn’t predict the man. Sandburg went to the driver’s side and turned toward Tony. “Hey, prejudice is everywhere. Hell, I know people who have trouble accepting their own heritage.”

Tony just nodded. He wasn’t sure what he could say about that logic.

After a second, Agent Sandburg nodded. “Okay, so let’s get you to Jack Kelso’s place. He actually loves annoying the police, so he will be thrilled to take you guys in for a few days. I’ll head over to your hotel and grab your stuff.” He frowned. “Unless you’d rather I not. I can leave it all there, but I can’t guarantee that Anderson won’t find someone who will search the place.”

“It’s fine for you to grab our stuff,” Tony said. He didn’t want Tali going without her pajamas or her toys. She didn’t have many, but she was very attached to the ones she had. He pulled out his wallet and offered Sandburg his hotel key card. Then he went to put Tali in the backseat behind Sandburg. That way Tony could see her from the passenger side. She went in without protest. Hell, this was the most accommodating she’d been since they’d started travelling. Usually every new car, new hotel and new city caused a significant amount of fussing and exceptionally quiet fit throwing. Now she was going into a strange truck without even a lip quiver.

Tony was starting to worry about her. He walked around the truck and was getting in when the name Sandburg had used registered. “Wait. Jack Kelso, the ex-CIA agent who wrote those books?”

Sandburg’s face lit up with a huge smile. “That’s him.”

Just when Tony thought it couldn’t get any stranger.


	6. Chapter 6

“Oh boy,” Blair said before he closed the door to Simon's office. It was so weird to see Jim behind Simon's desk. “Did you call Anderson’s boss?” Blair collapsed into the guest chair and Jim pushed a cup of coffee in his direction. 

“Yep. He’s almost as big of an asshole as Anderson. He won’t call Anderson on the carpet about this fuck-up.” Jim sounded crankier than usual about that.

Blair snorted. “Oh man, they’re going to get the whole police department to join a hate group dedicated to making Anderson’s life miserable. And that's not even counting the misery that's going to happen when Tony's friends in the federal agencies learn that some local bumpkin cops in bum-fuck Washington have arrested one of theirs. That's going to go over well.”

Jim lifted an eyebrow. “You checked on him.”

Blair rolled his eyes. “Like you didn’t. You told Tali that she could stay in town, and that is one little demon who knows exactly what that means. She’s also more than happy to stay, so you have just adopted a clan member, even if her father doesn’t know it.”

“I called around. She’s one of the David clan.”

Blair whistled. “Pitaca clan. Okay, I can see why Tony would have run like hell.”

“He doesn’t have to run. The mother of the child renounced her clan leader, and then died about a year ago. According to Wesley, the clan disowned her and the baby. They even scrubbed the names from their ceremonial scrolls. I have no idea what that means, but Wesley made it seem like a big deal.”

“The biggest,” Blair agreed. “I find it interesting that the mother would have slept with someone like DiNozzo. Most of those hierarchy demons are very into, well, hierarchies. She must have really liked him to have had a child with him.”

“Or she was using sex to manipulate him,” Jim said, ever the pessimist. “The David clan is a power broker, and DiNozzo might have been a means to an end.”

Blair shook his head. “No way. With demons, we don't get pregnant or get someone pregnant unless we intend to. So if she had a child with DiNozzo, it's because she wanted to. Tying her genes to someone that physically weak would've caused a stir in her clan. Maybe that's part of the reason her clan wiped her off the scroll.”

“She could also have less charitable motives, so let's not make any assumptions, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Blair arched his back until it cracked. “You know, just because the Pitaca have washed their hands of Tali doesn’t mean that Tony knows that.”

“When did DiNozzo become ‘Tony’?”

No way was Blair going to take any shit from his partner, not today. “Hey, you just adopted a member of the Pitaca clan, so I can adopt Tony. Hell, I don’t think he even knows he has demons in the family tree.”

“Tony’s a demon?” Jim looked surprised, so he must not have picked up any vibes from him. Blair was grateful for that because Jim was not entirely rational when it came to demons in his territory. He might bend for a child, but a full-grown demon would not get a warm welcome in Cascade. The Lubber clan was good evidence of that.

Blair held up his thumb and his finger about an inch apart. “He’s about this much demon.”

“So am I,” Jim pointed out.

“Man, a drop of Va’nuss is not the same as a drop of Kailiff or Brachen or basically anything else in the universe.”

“He doesn’t set off my instincts,” Jim admitted, “but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.” 

“I’m sure he can be as dangerous as any armed federal agent, but his demon side is not an issue,” Blair said with confidence. “He has so little in him that he doesn’t know he’s a demon. When I tried fishing for information on his clan, he just got more and more confused. However, he definitely has some. Hell, he might be one of my cousins because he does seem to have the instinct for knowing who is on his side.”

“A lot of humans have gut instincts.”

“And a lot of humans have a little demonic blood in them,” Blair pointed out. It always annoyed him when Jim acted like demonic communities and human ones were mutually exclusive. The more Blair looked into it, the more convinced he was that demon and humans had been interbreeding for far longer than anyone was willing to admit.

“Just don’t underestimate DiNozzo. And don’t assume he’s a good man just because he has a good reputation. There are plenty of demons who believe in justice without being good.” 

Jim lecturing him about demons was ironic, and given that Va’nuss were known for both upholding justice and destroying dimensions, Blair understood the difference. “Manson was 100% fully and completely human, no matter how many humans want to pretend otherwise, and he was as evil as evil comes. So don't pretend like the percentage of demonic blood changes whether someone is evil.”

“I didn’t say he was evil. I’m just not sure he’s good.”

“Oh, I would say he’s very good at some things,” Blair said.

Jim frowned.

“He’s a watcher and a bit of a rule follower. That’s why I think he’s on the eudemon side of the fence. He actually called me out for not arresting him, and when we were walking through the station, he radiated disapproval for the way uniformed officers abandoned ship when you and Anderson were fighting. And then he spotted Brown in the main lobby. He didn’t say anything, but his whole aura got darker when he watched Brown doing his paperwork.”

“Why was Brown doing paperwork downstairs?”

Blair hesitated. He didn't like throwing his friends under the bus, but if Jim wasn't paying attention to the staff, someone probably should. “It was pretty clear to me that he thought the woman he was taking a statement from was a suspect, but he was talking to her like they were still on friendly terms, which does imply a lack of Miranda rights.”

“Brown wouldn't take a statement without mirandizing the suspect.”

Blair grimaced. Maybe that would've been true before, but ever since Simon had been part time at the mayor's office, things had gotten a little less by the book. Blair figured most of that was because the other captains. A whole culture of letting shit slide had developed. Simon had been pretty damn good at making sure that his detectives didn't buy into it, but as much as Blair loved Jim, he wasn't going to pretend that Jim was good at the office work. When Blair didn't say anything, Jim’s frown grew deeper. 

“How bad?”

“Not as bad as other units.”

“Well fuck,” Jim said softly. “You're supposed to tell me that shit.”

“I was trying to give you time to get settled in the job.”

“Clearly, I'm not getting settled.” Jim ran a hand over his face. “If that shit is going on in my department—worse, in Simon's department—he's going to kill both of us.”

It was Blair's turn to grimace. “Yeah, I totally know.”

“Then you should've told me.” Jim's aggravation was sharper now.

“I would have!”

Jim gave him an incredulous look.

“Or I would've talked to Brown about it myself. Henry knows how proud Simon is of our conviction rate, so he would've knocked it off.”

“Before we lost a conviction?” Jim asked sharply. Blair didn't answer since Henny answer he would've given would have incriminated both himself and Henry. Jim made a noise and came very close to growling. “If I hadn't asked about DiNozzo, would you have told me this?”

“I was planning on talking to Henry as soon as I left here,” Blair said honestly. He didn't want criminals to walk free any more than Simon did. Hell, the whole reason Blair thought it was a good idea for Simon to move into the mayor's office was because he would have the power to bring all the units in line instead of just Major Crime. Someone had to do something. 

“I'll talk to him,” Jim said with a sigh.

“Maybe I should.”

Blair didn't get any farther before Jim essentially glared him into silence. Right. Blair would be staying out of it. 

“The interesting thing is that DiNozzo noticed,” Blair said. “I get the feeling the whole station was not getting high marks in his book, but he didn’t say much. That doesn’t mean that he couldn’t stir up a whole ton of trouble just by telling people what he saw.”

“So it's not that he's dangerous,” Jim summarized, “as much as we’re incompetent and in danger of getting caught at it.”

“Totally harsh.”

“Totally accurate,” Jim said. “So where did you stash DiNozzo?”

“I introduced him to Kelso. I figured out of sight out of mind, and if Anderson doesn't see him, maybe he'll forget how pissed he was the DiNozzo made a little slip when identifying himself to the suspect. Now to the more important question. What does Angel say about all this?”

“Why does it matter?” Jim asked with a casual air that didn’t match the way his shoulders got stiffer.

Blair narrowed his eyes. “Do not make me explain clan hierarchy again because I know you’re playing dumb. It's actually not cute.”

“I wasn’t going for cute.” Jim steepled his fingers. "Angel and Xander are coming up with McDonald. I don’t like McDonald being in my state, much less my city, but Angel didn’t give me much of a choice.”

Blair nodded. Lindsey was a good guy at heart, but he had grown up desperate and hungry. That had left a few cracks that made it easy for evil to manipulate him. Blair could see how Jim might interpret that as disloyal, even if Blair didn’t see Lindsey that way. Hell, Blair had slept with the man a few times, so he knew how tender and caring Lindsey was at his most vulnerable. However, Blair didn’t plan on saying that in front of Jim. “I’m sure Lindsey can sort out the legal issues.”

Jim smiled, and for a second, Blair could practically see the Va’nuss blood in him. “The one part of this I’m looking forward to is watching Lindsey sort Anderson out.” 

A shiver went up Blair’s spine. Anderson was so totally screwed, and he didn’t even know it yet. Jim was right—this might be a little fun. Well, not for Anderson.


	7. Chapter 7

“Thank you for the invitation,” Tony said. He was standing in Jack Kelso’s spare room. Jack Kelso. His book was the unofficial inspiration for at least three movies. True, Kelso’s book was dry and in need of a good editor, but Tony had mainlined it when he’d been a uniformed officer in Philly. Kelso had stood up against the whole corrupt CIA system, and Tony respected the hell out of him.

“Not a problem. Any friend of Blair’s is a friend of mine,” Kelso said with a warm smile. He looked like a college professor, which apparently he was now, but Tony still thought of him as the wronged CIA agent who blew the whistle on a dirty system.

“Are you Jim’s family, too?” Tali asked. She had a death grip on Tony’s neck, and she was still acting a little weird, but watching her father nearly get arrested would freak any kid out. After she’d been around a while, she’d realize that Tony had some weird karma and people did tend to arrest him. The only difference was this time was that he had committed the crime. Sort of. He hadn’t intended to impersonate a federal officer, and he thought that DA was a dick, but at least he wasn’t framing Tony.

Kelso looked up from his wheelchair. “I sure am. I’ve known Jim Ellison a long time.”

Tali felt silent, but her hold on Tony’s neck loosened. 

“Well, I owe you and them a big one,” Tony said.

Kelso smiled, but there was something guarded in that expression. Tony suspected that Kelso was going to investigate Tony two seconds after the bedroom door closed. That was fine. Tony was going to do a few background checks himself. “If you need me,” Kelso said, “I’ll be in my study. It’s on the other side of the family room. Sodas and snacks are in the fridge. You have the run of the house.” He rolled his chair backward.

“Thank you.” The fact that Kelso was such a good guy was a nice surprise. Plenty of cops blew the whistle on dirty departments because they wanted to be the center of attention. Maybe that was why Tony walked away from Danny Price rather than pressing charges against his ex-partner. Tony liked being the center of attention when he put himself there. He hadn’t been willing to give Danny that power over him—the power to define him as a snitch.

Tony wondered if that meant that Kelso was a better man or if the injury that had forced him out of the field made it easier for him to blow up his career in law enforcement.

Kelso rolled away down the hall, and Tali tugged to be allowed down. “Stay in the room for now,” Tony said as he let her down.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you getting into Mr. Kelso’s things.”

“Why?” She hopped up onto the bed and gave Tony such an earnest look that he swallowed down the urge to pull out the old ‘because I said so’ line. He definitely wasn’t going to tell her that Kelso probably had weapons hidden around the house and assumed a precocious child couldn’t find them. However, Tony knew better. Tali had a nose for heavy weaponry. She was her mother’s daughter. It didn’t help that the wheelchair meant that Kelso’s best hiding places were probably at Tali’s eye level. Yeah, he was not trusting her to wander the house alone.

“I need to call a friend, and you should not wander strange places alone.”

“Mr. Kelso is a friend of Blair and Jim.”

Tony sighed. He had no idea when Detective Ellison and Agent Sandburg had become Jim and Blair, and he didn’t like it. “Sweetie, they are good people, but you can’t trust someone you just met. We don’t know Jim and Blair, and I know about Mr. Kelso, but I don’t know him. I don’t want you to wander alone, not until we know them better.”

Tali searched his face. Just went Tony expected an argument, Tali nodded. “Okay, Daddy. Can I take a bath?”

Tony gave his girl a hug. “Of course you can. It looked like Mr. Kelso had bubble bath in there.” Tony wondered if Kelso had gotten some when Agent Sandburg had called ahead or if he had grandchildren who liked strawberry bubbles. Either way, it suggested Kelso went out of his way to make kids feel at home, and that was another mark in his favor. And even better, bubbles were one of the few childish pleasures Tali would indulge in.

Her face lit up, and without another word, she raced for the guest bathroom, her shirt coming off and flying across the room before she even reached the door.

Tony closed the bedroom door and stomped down on an urge to search the room for hidden cameras. Given Kelso’s background, he very well might have some, but as a guest in his house, it felt rude to search them out. Part of him desperately wanted to call Gibbs. He wanted to hear a gruff, “Stay right there” before Gibbs hung up and rode to Tony’s rescue, but that was a fantasy. Tony had a daughter to protect, and that meant keeping his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds.

Instead he sat on the edge of the bed and called the one person he knew would answer her phone for him, any time and for any reason. It rang twice before she picked up. 

“Tony!” Abby’s enthusiasm surrounded him.

“Abby.” He tried to sound cheerful, but the long silence the followed suggested he’d failed.

Eventually, she asked, “Okay, mister what's wrong?” 

“That is not fair. You should not be able to read me from the other side of the country.”

“I have known you for fifteen years. You cannot tell me that everything is okay because I hear it in your voice. It's not. What's wrong?”

He decided to focus on the part that was bugging him the most, and sadly, that was not his impending arrest. “There are a couple of cops that have shown an interest in being particularly kind to me and Tali, and it's making me nervous. I was wondering if you had any contacts and could check them out.”

“Have you called Gibbs?” she asked, her voice hesitant. Yeah, even she knew that relationship was broken. If they had parted in anger, Tony would believe Gibbs would get over it and invite Tony back into his life and into NCIS. However, they had been painfully cordial when Tony left. Gibbs had wished him well, which felt a lot more permanent. And while Abby had recovered from the worst of her Gibbs worshiping days, she still had a bad habit of assuming that he had some supernatural power to save everyone. And she assumed that Gibbs would want to save him. Tony listened to Tali laughing in the bathroom, and the water stopped running. She was his life now.

“Abby,” he said wearily.

“Okay, okay. I get it.” For a half second, Tony could hear an echo of Agent Sandburg's I hear you. “Right so I assume you have names for me.”

“The first one is Agent Blair Sandburg, CID.”

“The CID? I thought you were in Washington state?”

“I am,” Tony said. He was glad he wasn’t the only one who found that suspicious.

“Hinky. What is a CID agent doing in that area?”

“Apparently he hangs out with the Cascade Police Department as a liaison.”

There was another long silence. “That passes hinky and lands on freaky.”

“Yeah, kinda like NCIS having a Mossad liaison. Completely freaky.”

That made Abby go silent for a long time. At least she didn't poke his Ziva buttons anymore. There was only so much self-deprecating humor Tony could engage in before his real feelings started floating to the surface like decomposing bodies.

“Okay, Agent Blair Sandburg. Got it. So, who else am I doing a deep dive on?

“Detective James Ellison. He's also a Deputy Captain for the Cascade Police Department.”

“E-L-L-I-S-O-N?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Okay. I'm on it. Now will you explain to me what’s going on up there? I could come up if you need me. I wouldn’t mind at all. You’re my friend and you’re always going to be my friend.”

“Abby, it's fine. In fact, there is every chance that I am being overly paranoid.” At least Tony hoped so. Hopefully these two men were strange, not dangerous. Hopefully the DA would decide it wasn't worth pursuing a case against him. After all, if the prosecutor discredited Tony, he was not going to have his primary witness on the stand during any trial of the bank robber. Earlier Tony had assumed that the terrible conviction rate around here was due to police incompetence, but it was possible there were multiple factors at play.

“So how is Tali?” Abby asked.

Despite everything going on in his life, Tony smiled. “She's good. She actually likes Detective Ellison, and she is decided that she's not going to be a tiger girl anymore. She's a wolf girl.”

“Wolves are awesome! I'll send her some jewelry. So, what brought on that change?” Abby sounded amused, but then she knew how stubborn Tali was. Once she made up her mind, she didn’t change easily.

“Agent Sandburg convinced her that the wolves’ ability to hunt in packs made it a more effective predator.”

Abby was silent for two seconds before she started laughing. “That is such a Tali reaction. And you are such an awesome father that you don't try and convince her to be something she's not. Have I told you how awesome you are lately?”

“You have,” Tony said. For all her flaws, no one was a better cheerleader than Abby and nobody could cheer him up faster. “She is such a unique child. It turns out when I said that I hated kids, I just hate other people's kids.”

“Totally!” Abby said. “But Tali is so much better than other people’s kids. So, when do you need this background information and how deep do I need to go and are you somewhere safe right now, and don’t you dare lie to me, mister. I will come up there and hurt you, and you know I will.”

Tony smiled. There was something wrong with him because it felt good to have someone threaten him. “I need this in the next day or so, I need you to go Abby levels of special deep, and I am safe. Believe it or not, I’m holed up in the spare bedroom of one Jack Kelso.”

“Who?”

“Jack Kelso. He wrote that expose of the CIA after he was injured in an off-books mission. His book was the inspiration for that movie we went to together—Spies and Conspiracies.”

“Really?” Abby’s voice went up. 

“Oh yeah, and his book is so much better than the movie.” Tony leaned against the headboard and telling Abby all about Kelso’s book, or at least the interesting part. This was comfortable. The knot between Tony’s shoulder blades eased somewhat. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but today he had Tali splashing in the tub and Abby making happy noises over the phone. It was enough.


	8. Chapter 8

Spike stormed through the loft door the second Jim opened it. “Right then, where’s this sprog that you think you have the right to adopt into the bloody clan?” 

“Not here,” Jim said dryly. Spike stood in the middle of the living room looking about. Jim hoped he didn’t start breaking things. An aggravated Spike was dangerous to furniture.

Lindsey followed. “You are a brave man to piss Spike off that much, but thank you for the opportunity for a field trip.”

Angel and Xander were in the rear. “Hey, Jim!” At least Xander sounded happy to see him. “Wow. Cool loft. I love the design—very warm while keeping the industrial touches.” He wandered farther into the loft, his head tilted up as he studied the ceiling.

Jim focused on Angel. “Welcome to Cascade.” Jim followed his instincts and tilted his head to the side. It had been too long since they had visited clan. With Simon moving over to the mayor’s office, Jim had been too busy to make their annual visit.

Angel caught him around the waist, pulling him close before biting his neck. The pain was balanced by an insidious pleasure that Jim tried to ignore. Before Jim could enjoy himself too much, Angel pulled back. “You feel stronger.”

“Blair nags me into eating my vegetables,” Jim said. It wasn’t like Angel to make small talk. “So, if both of you are here, who’s running the hotel?”

Spike answered. “Same person who always does. And she’s bloody annoyed with you for taking in a Pitaca without even calling.”

“Right,” Xander said with an eyeroll. “Like you weren’t twice as annoyed as Cordelia. She pretty much forgave Jim the second he mentioned that she was three. So, where is she?”

“With a friend,” Jim said. “Blair and I were afraid that Anderson would look here, and we don’t want him to separate the father from the little girl. So we sent them over to Jack Kelso’s place.”

Angel walked to the balcony doors. “Do you think the girl is dangerous?”

Jim didn’t like the direction this was taking. “She’s a child.”

“She’s a Pitaca,” Spike said. “I wouldn’t discount one of those buggers in a fight, not even a little one.”

Jim crossed his arms. “She is not a danger.” If his clan tried to kill that child, Jim was going to kill one of them. And the thought of doing that made his blood pressure rise.

“She clearly is dangerous if you’re concerned about keeping her father with her,” Lindsey said as he dropped onto the couch and put a briefcase on the coffee table. “I reviewed the notes you sent, but either I can’t read your chicken scratchings or this Anderson is a fucking nitwit. Maybe both.”

Jim took a deep breath and moved to the chair. Focusing on Lindsey and the case made it easier to keep his anger under control. “Anderson is an asshole. He blames cops for his dismal conviction rate, and he goes out of his way to make us miserable.”

“Are the cops the problem?” Lindsey asked.

Damn the man for cutting straight to the heart of the problem. “In other departments? Probably,” Jim admitted. After he talked to Brown and sat the whole Major Crime squad down to read them the riot act, his people would be holding to the letter of the law. Jim needed to invest a little extra time in making sure it stayed that way. If this kept up, Jim wasn’t going to have time to solve any cases, and that was the only part of the job he liked.

Lindsey nodded. “So we’re talking revenge. It has to be. There is nothing in the statutes that would support Anderson’s fucked up charge. Did DiNozzo demand anything of value? Take any money? Use his supposed position as an NCIS agent to take any action that a civilian could not take?”

“No. In fact, he didn’t even make a citizen’s arrest. He ordered one of the patrol officers to arrest the suspect after the suspect literally ran into the cop on the street while running away from DiNozzo.”

Lindsey clapped his hands together. “Oh, this is going to be good. This will be so ugly that it won’t even hit the court because when their legal counsel sees the paperwork I’m about to drop on them, someone is going to shit bricks.” He looked up from his paper. “Do you think we could get Wesley to do a spell? I would love to see their faces when they read this.” Lindsey pulled an iPad out of his briefcase. “Oh, and don’t take offense when I name you and Blair in the lawsuit. It’s standard procedure. If I leave your names out, that would open the door for Anderson to point the finger at you and say you were the one violating all of DiNozzo’s rights. If I put your names on the list, then you get to be there with your own lawyer attacking his flank while I attack head on. Oh, I so hope he wants to go to court on this. He won’t, but a man can dream.”

Spike gave Lindsey and admiring look. “You look vicious enough to shag, pet.”

“Ew,” Xander complained, but given that he lived in the Hyperion, he couldn’t be too shocked at the idea that clan members slept together. Xander hopped up on a kitchen stool. “Okay, so when do we meet Tali and how do we tell her father that he’s a demon and his child is a powerful demon?”

“Carefully,” Lindsey said in an absent-minded tone. He had a sadistic expression as he typed away on a Bluetooth keyboard. He paused, gave a dark chuckle and started clicking away. Jim felt a tiny niggle of guilt for the shit storm that was about to land on Anderson’s head.

“No joke,” Xander said. “I didn’t react well to the whole reveal that demons were real. Then again, I was fifteen.”

“Him being forty-something will make it worse,” Jim said. “When you get older, you decide you know how the world works. Your own prejudices make it hard for you to even consider something so radical that it turns your world upside down.” Jim had seen people deny what was right in front of them when it hadn’t fit into their personal reality. The officers who had betrayed Jim on that doomed flight to Peru had left plenty of evidence of their guilt lying around, but those around them dismissed it all. In their heads, those were good men and any evidence that didn’t fit into their view of the world was summarily dismissed.

Jim had heard Xander talk about Sunnydale blindness as if the ability to ignore reality was unique to a Hellmouth. It sadly wasn’t.

Spike flashed into gameface. “Then we do a bit of show and tell.”

Angel turned around so his back was to the bright moon visible through the balcony doors. “Right before he stakes you,” Angel said. “He’s a federal agent and according to Blair, a eudemon. A Pitaca demon would not have chosen him to father her child unless she saw strength there.”

Spike bounced on his toes. “Better than him have tried and failed to take me. I think you’re forgetting that I’ve taken three slayers and a god, and I survived that whole apocalypse Jenny Giles planned out. I’m not that easy to kill.”

Angel’s expression went flat. “You ate a young doctor.”

“Who had a bloody god in him. Don’t forget that part, wanker.” Spike ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip.

Jim intervened before Angel and Spike decided to have one of their disturbingly sexual fights in the middle of his loft. “I would like to avoid breaking DiNozzo unless we have to. Everything I can find on the man says he’s a good investigator and an ethical man.”

Lindsey’s head whipped up. “Are you looking for a good investigator in your department?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Lindsey pursed his lips and gave Jim a thoughtful look. “You actually did. You said that there were officers in your department who were causing you to lose cases in court, and now here comes a respected investigator who needs a new home. It does seem like you’re making a place in the clan for him.”

Jim opened his mouth to deny it, but he couldn’t. He hated lawyers for two reasons—they twisted the truth and they revealed uncomfortable truths. Lindsey was annoying good at both.

“You don’t get to make that bloody decision,” Spike snapped.

“William.” Angel’s voice was low and dangerous. The hairs on the back of Jim’s neck stood up and even Spike quieted. For long seconds, the loft was silent. Jim had crossed a line, and he knew it, but he wouldn’t turn that little girl out. And if that meant making a place for her father, he would do that too. Every source he’d managed to tap told him that DiNozzo was a good man. A few people had said he joked too much and several claimed he had trouble making strong interpersonal connections, but Jim was not going to criticize another man for having the same damn flaw Jim did.

“Maybe we should go talk to him,” Xander said, ever the peace-maker.

Lindsey stood. “I should—”

“Sit,” Angel snapped. Lindsey dropped back down onto the couch. “If you’re as good as you claim, you can write that without his help.”

“Eventually, I will need to talk to him. I need his statement.”

“Fake it,” Angel said coldly. “Spike, guard him.” Spike leaned against the bookcase and gave a single nod.

“So, I take it that I’m nominated to explain demons to the normal guy?” Xander asked. “Oh yeah, this is going to be at least as much fun as our last apocalypse.”

“Could be worse, pet,” Spike said. “Peaches could have brought Anya. She’d give anyone a right terrifying introduction to our world.”

“She terrifies me on a semi-regular basis,” Xander agreed. He started to say something else, but Angel turned and walked out of the loft. Xander turned to give Jim a sympathetic look. Yeah, Jim was in shit. But he’d known that before Angel showed up. It’s why he’d sent Blair back to the precinct while he dealt with the clan’s arrival.

And the fact that Blair willing left suggested that Blair knew just how much trouble Jim was in. At least Angel was nice enough to handle the ass chewing in private. Jim headed after Angel, leaving Xander to trail after. The good news was that Jim was physically tough enough to handle a pissed vampire. As a young man, Jim had survived a chopper crash that had killed every other man on that bird. Now that he embraced his demonic side, he doubted the same crash would have left a scratch on him. That’s why it was so damn ironic that the department kept making noises about Jim moving out of the field. As Jim got older, they worried Jim would die or, even worse for their insurance rates, get badly injured on the job. But Jim was tougher than a typical human.

Jim walked in the hall and Angel caught him by the shirt and slammed him back into the wall. Xander just closed the loft door and watched the end of the hall. Jim didn’t fight back as Angel pinned him against the wall. “You took in a member of the David clan without even calling me? I wilna even ask why you believed that wise. I will ask why you thought I would allow it.”

Angelus was definitely driving the bus, but Angel wasn’t vetoing it, so he didn’t disagree.

“I didn’t know she was David clan or even a Pitaca.”

“So, ye took in an unknown demon with unknown clan ties?”

“I didn’t take her into the clan. I told her she could stay in town.” Jim took a deep breath and reminded himself to lower his voice. Yelling at Angel, or Angelus, was not wise.

The yellow vanished from Angel’s eyes and he stepped back. “Did ye not know what that meant?”

“She’s a child. We needed her father to stay in town and I wanted to reassure her.” Jim didn’t like admitting ignorance, but he hadn’t understood how seriously demons would take a simple comment.

Xander chuckled. “The next time I do something particularly undemony, I plan to point to this moment. If a Va’nuss gets to be this human, I do too.”

“A’choi, you are human.” Angel held his hand out and Xander moved to his side.

Since the violence was apparently over, Jim straightened out his shirt. “I was raised human, and Xander had the advantage of having you raise him from the age of fifteen.”

Xander wrinkled his nose. “Ewwww. Please do not say it like that. It makes it sound so very creepy. Besides, I want to go meet the newest clan members before they meet the less sane members of this clan and run for the hills.”

Jim thought about what might happen if DiNozzo met Spike. Running was a possibility. After all, DiNozzo seemed to be sane. “Well, let’s head over to Kelso’s place. The sooner we explain this to DiNozzo, the sooner we can figure out what to do from there.” Jim had a twinge at the idea that DiNozzo might want to take his daughter and leave. Jim was usually slow to warm up to people, but he was a little surprised to realize he didn’t want DiNozzo to leave, and he definitely didn’t want Tali to.

However, he was not the head of the clan. Jim didn’t understand Pitaca well enough to know whether the DiNozzos posed a danger to his city or his guide. So it was probably good that he had a clan leader to turn to, even if he still thought the clan sounded a little like a mob family. He was just glad they had left the consigliere at home because Cordelia scared him more than any of the vampires. That woman was too quick to use the truth as a weapon, so when Jim had been particularly stupid, he preferred her to stay in a different state. And this time, he had probably shown a shocking ignorance of demon culture.


	9. Chapter 9

Jim took a deep breath before he rang the bell. One of these days Jack Kelso was going to stop answering their calls, and Jim wouldn't blame him. They dropped too many problems on his doorstep. Jack was one of their few friends outside the Police Department. So when they wanted to do something that was legally questionable, Jack was their go to. And his love of security made him a safe ally whether they needed to hide evidence against a dirty cop or stash a demonic ex-federal agent.

“Seriously?” Xander whisper-hissed.

Jim looked over to see Angel trying to maneuver Xander behind him. “You'll be safer, a’choi,” Angel said as he tried to step in front of Xander. 

Xander retaliated with his elbows. “From what? The perfectly mortal ally that we’re visiting?” Xander gave Angel a look that was eerily reminiscent of Cordelia. After Jim got called on the carpet for screwing up, Jim was enjoying Angel’s discomfort.

“These are unknown demons,” Angel whispered, although he probably whispered it too loudly given that they were at Jack Kelso's house. Jim suspected the man had enough surveillance to make his ex-CIA colleagues jealous.

Xander crossed his arms. “I am the third best fighter in the clan,” he said. He glanced over at Jim. “Okay, fourth. But given that the other three of you are fucking terrifying, I can come in fourth and still be a world-class fighter. If you don't stop trying to shelter me, I'm going to do something unpleasant with your shampoo and hair remover.” Xander poked Angel in the stomach, and Jim cleared his throat.

Angel narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn't dare.”

“I really would.”

The two of them were staring at each other when Jack's door opened. “Jim,” Jack said with a hint of amusement that suggested he’d been watching on the cameras. “Are these the lawyers you are bringing in for that young man?”

“No,” Jim said, “but their friends of the lawyer. And we were hoping we could have a discussion with Mr. DiNozzo.”

“A private discussion,” Xander added. 

Jim winced at the idea of essentially kicking Jack out of his own house, but Xander was right that Jack didn't need or want to be part of clan business. The man had earned a little peace and quiet in his life, and learning about demons would not be good for his mental health. 

If it weren't for the fact that Jim was a demon, he would say his life would've been better for never knowing, but the clan had given him an understanding of himself. The clan had given him Blair. Jim offered Jack an apologetic smile. “This is Xander, and he's right that we need to talk to Mr. DiNozzo about things that are best left out of the public record, or even any private ones.” Jim raised an eyebrow. He had no doubt that Jack kept extensive recordings of what happened at his house, and if he was not comfortable turning those off, Jim would need to find another place for this discussion. 

Jack rolled his chair backward. “Of course. Come on in. I'm sorry I didn't catch your name,” Jack said as Angel came through the doorway. 

“Angel Donnelly, Donnelly Investigations,” Angel introduced himself. Jack raised his eyebrows, his expression of disbelief inviting them to offer up a more plausible lie. Jim got it. The only thing that could help DiNozzo with his legal mess was a lawyer. These two, Angel in particular, looked like the sort of “investigator” that people hired when they wanted kneecaps broken. 

They were broad shouldered and walked with the sort of grace that one found in athletes and assassins. With their dark hair and dark eyes, they were a matched pair, although Angel was taller and had a quieter energy about him. They walked into the tiled entry, and Jack pushed open one of the sliding doors that led to his private study.

“Detective Ellison.”

Jim turned to see DiNozzo standing in the hallway, his hand held out to his side to keep his daughter back. The hair along the back of Jim's neck stood on end as his clan leader met the two demons that Jim had inadvertently invited into the clan. Jim truly had not intended to offer anything more than temporary sanctuary. If he’d wanted to offer DiNozzo anything longer term, he wouldn’t have made the offer to the child.

“Hi,” Xander said, wading into the sudden discomfort that it settled in the air. Xander had an energy that reminded Jim of Blair. He was more physical than Blair, more likely to use his hands to build something then to seek out book knowledge, but for all of the darkness he had suffered in his life, he still had optimism that was almost childlike. In some ways, it felt like he was the youngest person in the room because Tali curled her fists around her father's pant leg and radiated tense anger that didn’t match her age.

Spike had said he’d be wary of even a small Pitaca. Jim slowly breathed out and focused his sight not on the physical world but the demonic energies he had inherited with his Va’nuss ancestor. Angel’s power was a sun that lit the room and Xander was the moon, reflecting his power in a changed form. Their shared light erased most of the physical details of the house, and Jack Kelso was a faint stain on reality. 

Jim turned his attention to hallway where DiNozzo stood with his daughter. The girl caught his attention first. Power roiled under her skin. If Jim had thought of her as a demon first and a child second, he would have seen the danger. Spike had recognized the danger with nothing more than the name of the clan, and Jim had let his guard down. Angel was never going to forgive him for missing the obvious danger here.

“Are you the lawyers?” DiNozzo asked.

Jim studied DiNozzo, searching for the signs of demonic energy that Blair had taught him to see. He’d never held the vision so long or looked so deeply. At first, DiNozzo was like Jack—a ghost image. But then Jim realized the image was moving. Jim focused until every muscle in his body ached. He pushed through that curse-based barrier between him and his Va’nuss powers to study the way DiNozzo’s power flowed like water. In placed it trickled or dripped, but he had a waterfall flowing down his arm into the hand that restrained his daughter. If Tali was fire burning under the surface, DiNozzo was rain cooling the flames. 

Jim blinked away the vision and took a few deep breaths as the world wavered around him like a mirage.

Jack rolled his chair forward and back a couple of times. “Why don't you gentlemen use my study,” Jack suggested. Jack study doubled as a panic room with thick concrete walls and insulation so thick that even Jim had trouble hearing past it.

“Thank you,” Jim said. Jack held up a hand as if to stop Jim from saying anymore. With one last look of concern towards DiNozzo, Jack turned and rolled towards the back of the house where his bedroom overlooked a backyard that hummed with security devices.

Jim tried to step forward, but his knees turned to water. He grabbed the edge of the wall to keep his knees from buckling, and Angel darted to his side, slipping a hand under Jim's elbow. DiNozzo took two large steps forward. “Detective Ellison? Are you okay?”

Jim forced his legs to straighten and hold his weight, although he did hang on to Angel’s steady support for a moment. “I just had a dizzy spell,” Jim said. If this conversation didn't send DiNozzo running the opposite direction, Jim would have to explain the drawbacks that came with his gifts.

Angel had narrowed his eyes as he studied Jim, so he had probably figured out what Jim had done. Xander looked from Jim to DiNozzo to Angel, his head like a spectator at a tennis match. “Are we going to talk or just stand here awkwardly, because this is awkward. I'm an expert in awkward, and this is it.”

“We should talk.” Jim headed for the open door to Jack's office. It was in the middle of the house with no windows or exterior walls, and as Jim walked toward it, he could hear the ambient noise drop off. Xander was right about one thing, this was exceptionally awkward, but sadly it was still going better than Jim's own introduction to the world of demons. No one had tried to bury DiNozzo alive, so he was ahead of the game in the grand scheme. 

DiNozzo did not follow. “If you're not lawyers, what are we talking about?”

“I have the lawyer working on the case already,” Angel said. “However, I have to decide if you are worth the significant resources that Detective Ellison would have us invest.” With that, Angel became the head of the clan. He strode past Jim into Kelso’s study and moved behind his desk where he settled into a leather club chair set up behind a low custom-built desk. Even though the chair was lower than a standard desk chair, Angel still dominated the room. As he pressed his fingertips together, he considered DiNozzo with that special air of condescension that screamed Angelus.

“And the awkward keeps coming,” Xander said softly.


	10. Chapter 10

“Honey, go back and play in the room,” Tony said. These men radiated danger, and part of Tony didn't want to be in an enclosed space with them. However, he also didn't want to put Detective Ellison in a difficult situation when the man was trying to help. Every piece of information that Abby had found suggested that Ellison was a straight shooter. 

Normally Tony was suspicious of cops who got named Cop of the Year, especially when they won multiple times. That was often a political reward for an officer who knew which side his bread was buttered on—someone who protected the higher ups. But the Kelso Tony knew through his book wasn't the sort to be friends with a political animal. And Abby had not found the sort of poorly hidden whispers and redacted complaints that Tony expected from a cop who abused his position. 

Abby insisted that he was the real deal, a good man to his core, but then she insisted the same of Gibbs. Tony knew how often Gibbs had played loose with the rules and how many people's lives had been cut short by Gibbs’ belief in his own righteousness. 

Paper didn't always reveal the truth. 

It was like the difference between cops who blew the whistle for the right reasons in the wrong ones. Eighty percent of the time, cops who spoke out against corruption were good people who were willing to risk their lives to fix what had gone wrong in the department. They risked being ostracized or having their calls for backup go ignored. They endured a million daily tortures and little harassments. 

But the other twenty percent of the time, whistle-blowers were assholes who wanted to be in front of the news cameras, who wanted to use their fifteen minutes of fame and parlay it into political connections and favors that they could trade like cards. They became professional guests on the news or they demanded plum assignments and threatened to claim retaliation if they weren’t given one.

So as much as Abby told him Detective Ellison was a good man, Tony still had an echo of distrust he could not shake. Unfortunately, his daughter was not listening to him. “Tali go back to the room,” Tony repeated with an edge of panic in his voice. He didn't want his daughter in the middle of this.

“Why do you not listen to your father child?” The man identified his Angel asked. Danger like cold prickles ran across Tony skin.

“Wolves are stronger when they fight together,” Talia said in a non sequitur that managed to hit every wrong note in an already tense situation. Ellison stood at the entrance to a windowless study, watching. Tony got the feeling he wasn’t in charge here. Even if Ellison was a straight shooter, that didn’t mean these two new men were. 

“Tali go back to your room now,” Tony said in his firmest voice.

Tali looked up at him with large, wounded eyes, tears already gathering at the corners. Shit. She was going to cry. Tears were like Tony's kryptonite, only worse. Kryptonite made Superman weak, but tears could make Tony betray his own values. He would do anything to avoid Tali tears. He would watch fifteen hours straight of the same thirty minute cartoon on a loop. He would let his daughter have candy for breakfast—all to avoid tears. Ignoring the danger that swirled around the room, Tony knelt down. “Honey, the adults are going to talk. Why don't you go play with some of the toys that Jack brought you?”

Her lower lip started to quiver and her eyes grew bright. Holy shit. Defcon one. Defcon one. Tony flailed for a better bribe. “Why don't you get the iPad and go look up times for the aquarium so that we can go on a field trip tomorrow,” Tony suggested. If there was a warrant out for his arrest, going out in public was absolutely stupid. However, he would take on the Cascade Police Department before he would take on his daughter's tears.

“Maybe she should stay,” Ellison suggested.

“I don't think my daughter needs to be here to discuss a court case.”

Xander winced. “Actually we were going to discuss her mom's family because our family sort of knows her mom's family.” Xander scratched his neck. “And there's knowing and then there's knowing, and what we know, we figure you should probably know, because sometimes knowing is better than not knowing.” Xander took a breath. “Although not knowing is way more comfortable than knowing. Ignorance might be stupid and suicidal, but the old saying about ignorance being bliss is more true than I would want to admit.” Xander seemed to run out of energy for his words like a windup doll that ran to the end of it spring. Tony stared at him, wondering when this man had gone from terrifying to harmless goof. It was an illusion, and one that didn't take Tony in, but it made him more uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, his daughter didn't have the same good sense. 

“You know mom's family?” Tali tried to move toward Xander. Tony grabbed her by the back of her shirt and physically hauled her back before picking her up. She kicked and threw elbows and squirmed, but Tony was very used to his daughter leaving bruises on him. He just held on as she threw her perfectly silent fit. 

“What you know about Ziva's family?” If they were bringing Eli David into this, the situation might be a lot more dangerous than the Cascade Police Department pressing charges. Tony had tried to stay off the radar because he understood the danger that lingered. When a powerful man like Eli died, power could land in unpredictable places. Orli Elbaz might have given him Tali, but that did not mean that he felt free of the shadow of the Davids. Eli had fashioned his children into weapons. He had slept with a woman simply to create a spy that, thirty years later, he could aim at his enemies. And when that child failed to live up to his father's expectations, he'd had Ziva to execute her own brother.

Ziva had been the little girl who loved colors and wanted to be a ballerina, and instead she'd been shaped into a ninja. If any of the Davids came within a country mile of Tali, Tony intended to kill them. And given how long he had spent studying the way other people covered up murders, he had every intention of getting away with murder himself.

“Can we at least go all the way into the study and close the doors so that we are assured privacy?” Detective Ellison asked. Tony frowned at him. If the man was suffering dizzy spells, that explained why he was moving into a desk job, but Tony felt like he was trying to put a puzzle together and someone had stolen half the pieces.

Tony took a toward the trio, still not sure what to do. As much as he didn't want to be in a closed room with these three, he really did not want his daughter in there. However, his choices seem to be to listen to them or to take his daughter and flee. Tony had no idea why his gut told him those were the only two options, but he'd been a cop too long to ignore his instincts.

Still feeling unease to the core of his being, Tony moved towards the study. His strange child finally settled. When Xander and Detective Ellison went in before him, Tony felt a small whisper of relief that no one was going to try to cut him off from the escape route. Xander sat in the chair nearest Angel, and Ellison chose a chair close to them. Were they projecting a united front? It meant all three men were on the far side of the study, ceding the area closest to the door to Tony and his daughter. They were playing the angles, but Tony couldn’t see the whole picture.

“Close the door, please,” Ellison said. “There are things about the David family that do not need to leave this small group.”

“I find it hard to believe that the spy masters of Israel are not already on Jack Kelso's radar.” Tony hesitated, one arm around his daughter and the other on the door. He was not in a position to physically defend himself, and his fingers itched with a need to grab a weapon.

“Oh, they are,” Ellison said. “However, we know things about them that Jack doesn't know, and it would not make him sleep any better if he found out.”

Tony could believe that. He hovered, feeling like his actions in the next sixty seconds were important. He’d felt the same the day he’d stood in Danny Price’s apartment. Tali had gone still. After a long silence, Tony slid the double doors closed behind him, and an ominous snick made him regret his actions immediately. 

However, if he tried pulling the doors open, he would simply show his hand. If Tony needed to get out, he would have to bluff his way out. He moved to the chair closest the door and sat. Tali squirmed around until she could turn to face Angel. She was her mother's daughter, always searching out the biggest threat in a room and watching with the wariness of a tiger girl, or apparently now a wolf girl.

Tony decided to take charge and move this façade along. “Ziva is alive. I've known that for a while, but she is clearly trying to avoid us, which makes me believe there is someone out there that might use us against her.”

Angel looked to Ellison, and he shrugged. “I didn't see anything in the records that suggests that she still out there, but she's Pitaca, and they’re hard to kill.

“Pity that you did not do that research before,” Angel said dryly. Ellison winced under the reprimand, and Tony was trying to figure out the dynamic here. Xander and Angel were not cops, it so it was starting to look like Ellison might be dirty. Tony could definitely see Xander and Angel fitting into a mob family structure.

“What's Pitaca?” Tony asked. He'd never heard that word before, and it didn't sound Jewish.

An awkward silence filled the room, but then Xander cleared his throat. “It is awesome that you asked that. This is my first time giving this particular speech because normally we make Blair do this part. He is way less threatening than any of us, although I have to say that I'm very proud of the fact that some people tell me that I come off as threatening because when I was a teenager I was definitely low man on the totem pole in terms of being able to intimidate anyone. That's what happens when you hang out with people that are way more powerful than you are, but I'm very proud of the fact that people do occasionally tell me that I give off some bad ass vibes.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. The longer Xander talked, the more of those bad ass vibes he lost. Clearly he was one who preferred camouflage over cold intimidation, and as another one who chose that strategy himself, Tony was not particularly reassured.

Xander nodded. “Okay, Blair usually starts at the beginning of the world stuff. There were powerful creatures that weren’t human, and they would come to this planet, and some people said they owned this planet before humans, but that is definitely up for debate. Well, no matter who was native to this world and who just snuck through a dimensional portal, there was a big war over who got to stay here. Most of these creatures were pushed out, but not all of them because if all of them had been pushed out, then you would have anything other than humans on Earth and you definitely have a lot of creatures who are not human on Earth. Or at least they're not fully human because the other dimension demons—the full demons—they are huge. I’m talking like brontosaurus huge. You don't see many of them on the planet, but you see a lot of partial demons and that's what we should talk about.”

Angel and Ellison were both staring at Xander blankly. Tony sympathized. He’d never been ground zero for someone’s psychotic break before. Either that or Xander was starting the world’s strangest con. This was a level of subterfuge that completely defied logic. 

“I didn't explain that well,” Xander said with a grimace. “There's a reason why we usually have Blair do this part, but Blair is probably avoiding us because Jim did something really stupid, and Angel is really cranky about that, and when Angel gets cranky at Jim, sometimes Blair tries getting in the middle and trying to make everyone be happy and friendly to each other. Then both Blair and Jim get upset with him for getting in the middle when he knows he probably shouldn't get in the middle because it's a whole demons are weird thing.” He flapped his hands.

Yeah, that still didn't make any sense. None. Zero. Tony looked from one man to another as he searched for the puzzle pieces that would make this particular game snap into focus. So far, it wasn’t working.

“Grandfather says humans shouldn't be here,” Tali said. Surprise made Tony twitched. His daughter rarely talked to strangers, and he definitely did not want her getting sucked into the whole demon delusion. She was already obsessed with tigers and wolves, so he didn't need to start adding supernatural monsters to that particular list of obsessions.

“This is the only planet were humans do belong,” Xander said to her gently. However, he didn’t fall into the baby talk that most adults did. “Demons can go to do all sorts of dimensions, but this is really the only one that's good for humans. I don't even know why so many demons want to take over, because this is not the best dimension for most demons.” He glanced over toward Angel, and Tony was pretty sure the man was trying to imply Angel was a demon. 

“Sure,” he continued, “demons that have a lot of human in them like vampires find this the best dimension. Well, except that there are dimensions where vampires can stand in the sun and let me tell you… when you have a vampire that's been alive for two hundred years and has never been able to stand in the sunlight, and then you take them to a world where they get to stand in the sunlight. There is much happiness to be had.” Xander’s expression turned fond for a brief second, and then he wrinkled his nose. “But that was a world were humans were enslaved, which was still better than how humans generally get treated in other dimensions. But my point is this is the human homeworld.”

“Then where's the Pitaca homeworld?” Tali asked. The seeds of doubt and discomfort were starting to sprout in Tony's soul.

“I don’t know,” Xander said. “We have someone really good at research who might be able to find out if anyone has put down theories in books, but the sad truth about books is that they’re only as right as the person who wrote them, and lots of people make really bad assumptions when it comes to demons. I mean, lots of people think demon means evil or that demons are more important than humans. Blair insists on using eudaemon and kakodaemon when he talks about non-human creatures because he says that human culture has too many bad assumptions built into the word ‘demon,’ but demons have plenty of their own bad assumptions.”

“Wait, what are you trying to suggest?” Tony held his little girl tighter.

Xander looked at Angel. “I think you're going to have to show him. He's a detective, so I'm pretty sure that he is going to want to see proof rather than just listen to me half-ass Blair's spiel. I am so glad Spike was not here. If Spike had heard half of that speech, I would be getting laughed at for the next fifty years.”

Angel held his hand out, palm down and Xander reached for it, his two hands embracing Angel’s one. “He would not make fun of you unless he wished to suffer pain for each of those fifty years,” Angel said.

“If you break Spike, you have to deal with Cordelia,” Xander said. Strangely, this time Angel winced. The power dynamics in this room were complicated enough that Tony wasn't sure he would understand them, even if he took insanity out of the equation and he was definitely not willing to take insanity out.

Angel sighed and looked toward Tony. “I am a protector of what is mine, not a mindless killer, despite human mythology.” Tony was about to ask what that meant, but then Angel’s face rippled. Ridges and fangs sprouted out of human features and his eyes yellowed.

Tony shot to his feet. That was a vampire.


	11. Chapter 11

“Tony, you’re safe,” Jim said. Tony had a wild expression in his eyes, so Jim risked another bout of weakness by slipping into his demon sight. Water no longer flowed downward into his limbs, but instead churned like a hurricane at his core. But Tali’s fire had quieted to a glowing ember. Jim blinked to the sight away before it could drain him too much. If Tony or Talia panicked, Jim wanted to make sure that he had the ability to restrain them without causing either damage.

“Mr. Ellison said we could stay,” Tali said with a stubborn tilt to her head as she considered Angel. “And if you’re pack with Mr. Ellison, that means we're pack with you.” She definitely understood more about demon hierarchy that her father or, apparently, Jim. He had definitely screwed the pooch with this one.

Angel cast an exasperated look toward Jim before he turned his attention back to Tali. “Your father doesn't understand what that means.”

Xander snorted. “No joke. I'm pretty sure her father thinks he's all human.”

Tony's mouth literally fell open and Tali looked over her shoulder to search her father’s face. Apparently she had assumed her father knew about his demonic family tree. As the one person in this room who had tried and failed to hold onto an illusion of humanity, Jim felt like it was his responsibility to reassure DiNozzo.

“No one in this room is one hundred percent human, although several of us are mostly human,” Jim said. Xander was the closest they had to humans and the consort bond changed him enough that he could take Faith in a fair fight, not that either of them were fair when they sparred. “I have less than one percent demon blood in me, and it changes me. Whatever you have in the family tree, it could be back hundreds or even thousands of years.” Jim assumed that unless Tony was something as strong as a Va’nuss, the demon in his family tree was a little more recent, but he wasn't going to get into details at this point.

“I have no idea what you talking about,” Tony said. Jim had the feeling that this is a man who normally wore masks, but those had all crumbled, leaving raw confusion and a low level of terror simmering just on the surface. Tony couldn't tear his eyes away from Angel, and Angel let his game face slide away as he returned to his human features. 

Taking a risk, Jim got up and moved between Angel and Tony so that Tony would be forced to focus on him. He sat on the corner of Kelso's desk and braced his hands on his knees. “I didn't know about my less human ancestors until about fifteen years ago. When I found out, it was under the absolutely worst circumstances. I refused to believe any of this was true, and I created a whole fiction in my mind where these people were some sort of delusional mobsters. I tried hard to live in the state of denial, but when something is true, you feel it in your bones.” Jim fell silent while Tony processed the words. His expression was wild, and he was clutching Tali tighter than a human child would have tolerated. “Mr. DiNozzo, you are mostly human, but there is more there. You have a power in your core that humans simply doesn't have.”

Tony opened his mouth and then closed it without saying anything.

“That's why Orli said I had to live with Abba,” Tali said.

Tony looked at his daughter. “What? Why did you have to live with me?”

Tali squirmed around so that she faced her father, which put her back to Jim and the others. Jim got the feeling that from this little girl that was a compliment. “Orli said David power was too strong and if I stayed with Ima’s family that the only way they could control my fire would be to teach me to use it, and that teaching me to use my fire would be like teaching me to be Ima and she didn't want me to have to be Ima. She said Ima was unhappy being Pitaca. Pitaca don't get to be ballerinas.” She had a tremor in her voice that warned of tears. Maybe demon children were tougher, but this little one had been through too much.

“Oh, baby.” Tony held his daughter close. “Your mama would be a beautiful ballerina. She's very graceful and she can be anything she wants. When we find her, I'm going to tell her exactly that.”

Jim was trying to figure out the right words of reassurance to use when Angel spoke. “Why did Orli believe your father could help you with your power?”

Tali looked over. “She said daddy's power was calming. She said Ima never would have turned her back on her clan if daddy hadn't calmed her power enough for her to think clearly. She said Davids never think clearly. She said that Davids rarely think at all but they were good at some stuff, but I shouldn’t know about that yet.”

As far as Jim was concerned, that was a little too much honesty to share with the child, especially one who had been taken from the only home she knew. However, he understood that demons rarely treated children like anything other than very small adults.

“I calmed her power?” Tony sounded bewildered. This was a lot to throw at the man.

Jim nodded. “That matches what I can see. Tali's power is like fire, but yours is more like water. It flows or when you're upset it rages like a hurricane, but it doesn't burn.”

“My power?” Tony looked at Jim like he had lost his mind. Jim understood that an investigator needed evidence. Jim closed his eyes and called his spirit guide. The jaguar appeared at his side, his nose twitching as he considered the two new people. 

Tali clapped her hands and squealed. “He's like a tiger!”

“He’s a jaguar,” Jim said. “He chose this form when I was alone and afraid and suspicious of everyone. However, I was lucky enough to find someone who would help me become a better man, and that required me to become a better demon.” Jim closed his eyes and this time he called Blair's spirit guide. The wolf appeared and looked around the room, it’s joy making the air feel lighter. It touched noses with the jaguar, who rubbed his face against the wolf's solid body. Then, tongue hanging out, the wolf did his rounds. He went over and got a pat on the head from Angel and then a good ear scratching from Xander before he approached the two newcomers. 

His ears were forward, and his tongue lolling as he slowly inched forward. “That can't be real,” Tony said. His voice was a full octave above its normal range.

“He is, but he's not a danger to you. Blair likes you.”

Tony's gaze flitted between the wolf and Jim. “That's Blair?” Tony was on the edge of panic.

“No, that's Blair spirit guide. Spirit guides gives us access to our more demonic traits.” Jim kept his voice factual. He had a feeling if he showed any sympathy or tried comforting Tony, the man would bolt for freedom. Given that the door was locked and Angel, that would end badly. The wolf stood at Tony's knees now, and Tony tried to hold his daughter up and out of danger. However, that little girl was a squirmer. She landed an elbow on the side of her father's head and while he was distracted, she wiggled free enough to shove both of her hands into the fur around the wolf’s face. 

Tony gasped, but Tali giggled and pulled the wolf closer. Tony would be able to feel the physical presence of the guide, and it was hard to deny something whose hot breath you could feel against your skin.

“He's friendly,” Tali said with wonder. She looked at Jim with confusion in her face.

Fifteen years ago, Jim would not have understood that confusion, but these days he hung out with more demons. “He's not friendly to everyone. He can hunt, or kill if necessary, but he would rather not. Wolves like to find safety in packs because that way others see their strength and are wise enough to not challenge them.” Jim put a hand on his own spirit guide. “Jaguars prefer to find safety and shadows. Safety isn't always about being strong. Sometimes it's about knowing how to avoid the fight and letting others rush around and damage themselves with their own stupidity.”

Tali looked at her father. “Is that what you were doing? Are we moving so that Davids will be stupid like Orliy says, and damage themselves?”

Tony glared at Jim. Clearly this was a topic DiNozzo did not want to discuss with his child. Jim held his hands up in surrender. He wasn’t going to get in the middle of this relationship, especially since he didn’t understand it. “The Davids aren't stupid, honey.” Jim could practically hear the unspoken “but” that follow that statement. The man was smart enough to know that he had danger on his tail. “Sweetie,” Tony said, “will you go play with your toys in the room now?”

“Can I look for aquarium times so that we can have our outing?” Tali gave her father a manipulative smile. DiNozzo did not seem overly impressed. 

“I offered you that twenty minutes ago, and you chose to ignore my offer,” he said firmly. Go play with your toys. He gave her hip a swat and she slid off his lap. Tony didn't reach for the door. He looked at Angel. The man might not be in touch with his demonic roots, but he understood power. 

Angel pushed the button on the desk and the lock audibly disengaged. Tony gave Tali a push toward the door. “Go on, sweetie.” 

Tali looked around the room before he hopped off her father’s lap and skipped out of the room. Jim watched her close the door behind her, and he half expected Tony to make a run for it. Jim wasn’t sure how Angel would react, but he would probably let him leave, and then Tony would be on his own with this new understanding of the world and a child with powers he couldn’t comprehend. Instead Tony turned his gaze from the door to Jim. He leaned to the side to see Angel behind Jim and then he focused on Jim again.

“So, what’s really going on here?” he asked. His mask was back in place. He leaned back and raised one eyebrow before giving Jim a cocky grin. If Jim hadn’t been through this himself, he might have even believed the bored expression. “Let’s put our cards on the table.”


End file.
